Hop

Reviewed by Cameron Williams

Released: 1st April 2011

Directed by: Tim Hill

Starring: Russell Brand, James Marsden

Certificate: U

Christmas movies come out every year with clockwork timing and precision to capitalise on the one time of year when we let our guard down and spend money on gifts and crappy Christmas movies.  Obviously the Christmas movie formula works but can it be applied to Easter?  Hollywood executives have spotted a hole in the market and have decided to fill it with the Easter inspired ‘Hop’.  ‘Hop’ tells the story of E.B (Russell Brand) a magical rabbit who is next in line to take over the crown of Easter Bunny, the problem is E.B wants to follow his dreams of becoming a musician so he escapes to Hollywood to follow his dreams with the help of a slacker Fred O’Hare (James Marsden).  ‘Hop’ is a film simply made to cash in on the hype of Easter that lacks heart and humour.

‘Hop’ gets points of imagination and it gets the spark going early on playing around with the concept of the Easter Bunny but its all downhill from the opener and it’s a real disappointment coming from the team that made the enjoyable ‘Despicable Me’.  The big problem is the way the film makes such a big deal out of the commercial side of Easter with a heavy focus on chocolate eggs and candy; ‘Hop’ plays out like a confectionary companies wet dream.  I’m not an overly religious person but this film is a real kick in the balls for anyone who genuinely chooses to celebrate Easter.  ‘Hop’ even goes to great lengths to steal ideas from Christmas with the Easter Bunny getting around in a giant sled pulled by Easter chicks??????

To make matters worse the heart and humour in ‘Hop’ is non-existent and the whole film is overshadowed by Russell Brand providing the voice to the main character.  The voice acting of any animated character should give life to the character and not overshadow it which is what Russell Brand manages to do.  Despite some attempts from Brand to inject his own style of humour into the movie it doesn’t work and that’s probably because you can’t water down what Russell Brand does.  It baffles me as to why he would decide to paddle around in the kiddie pool instead to revelling in the adult humour he is famous for.

‘Hop’ is an Easter film that is as empty as a giant chocolate egg which at the end of the day is what this film is flogging.  If you see ‘Hop’ and find yourself subconsciously buying hordes of chocolate eggs or you find your kids constantly nagging you for them the film has done its job.