Easter Special: Random Movie Review - Hop (This is not at April Fools prank! Seriously!!)

Yeah I'm not messing about today. Even though it is April Fools Day as well as Easter Day (yeah I don't know how that works either), I have decided to do a review today and its not a joke at all. So this year with the release of Peter Rabbit in cinemas, the interest in rabbits has gone up. So I thought to review what I believe is the only known Easter film in existence (unless of course you count the Easter elements in Rise of the Guardians) which also serves as Illumination's second film and to date, their only known live action and animation hybrid film (probably for good reason). I probably will review Peter Rabbit at some stage in the future, but for now let's see if this celebrates the holiday or just hops nowhere:

On Easter Island (oh the irony), we see a secret Willy Wonka like factory hidden beneath the island. This factory is of course run by a long line of Easter Rabbits, the current one being Mr. Bunny (voiced by Hugh Laurie of House and Blackadder fame). Mr. Bunny is nearing his time for retirement and wants his son E.B. (voiced by controversial comedian Russell Brand who also physically makes a cameo later on) to take over the family business. But when it becomes too much for E.B., he leaves Easter Island to pursue his dream of being a drummer and goes to Hollywood to do just that. E.B. eventually meets a out of work, job hunting slacker called Fred O'Hare (played by Cyclops himself, James Marsden) who fearing of being jailed for abuse towards animals, reluctantly takes E.B. in and they two have a buddy adventure, unaware that back on Easter Island, a mutiny is about to take place.

While the animation looks fine, the story is one that has been done a billion times before where an animated character meets a live action character and they go on a buddy adventure which has its ups and downs, but they eventually become friends and stop the villain from doing stuff. That's basically the film's plot in a nutshell without the spoilers (at least to some extent). The acting is pretty good as well, but what lets the film down ultimately, is the uninspiring and predictable plot. As Illumination's second film, it's clear that they know acting and good animation when they see it. It's the story telling side of things that needs work. As the "potentially" only Easter film in existence, it keeps with the spirit of the holiday and actually does genuinely try to do everything it can do with Easter. So really it's the story that will bring what is otherwise a good film, down to a level that leaves people disappointed. 7/10