Anthomation Assesses Hop

Howdy guys, Anthomaton here. Today I shall review the only highly marketed Easter bunny animated film: Hop.

Hop is a 2011 live action/animation hybrid from Illumination Entertainment, the studio behind all of the films featuring the Minions with some poor Dr. Seuss adaptations sprinkled in. Boy are we off to a great start! This was the only live action/animated film made by Illumination. This makes sense because it grossed $185 million against a $63 million budget but received generally negative reviews from critics.

Beneath Easter Island, in a giant factory that manufactures the world’s Easter candy, the popular rabbit is preparing to pass the mantle to his son, E.B. (Russell Brand). But E.B. has no interest in the job and would rather be a drummer. He runs away to Los Angeles, where an unemployed slacker named Fred O’Hare (James Marsden) accidentally runs into him. Feigning injury, E.B. tricks Fred into giving him shelter, but an oversized chick is planning a coup back on Easter Island.

The story is painfully generic and full of cliches. This is literally every animated film that ever had the main character who was unsatisfied with their role and wants more. It does not help that it is a hybrid film, meaning that the story is not entirely about Easter. So, the audience is also saddled with a plot containing some lazy young adult who is forced out by his family to get a job. If I wanted to see a film that was about family struggles, I would watch The Incredibles (2004). So it would be nice if this movie tried to be, oh I don’t know, an EASTER MOVIE! God, this movie is incredibly boring. I don’t want to see a drum-playing bunny help James Marsden get employed. I want to see a magical film about the mythos of Easter and everything it has to offer. To the film’s credit, it has a visually appealing intro about how the candy is made in the Easter factory right before it is delivered. But nope, we got to revert to the Chipmunks formula just with a flannel-wearing bunny.

The animation is not the most impressive, considering how restrained it is to the plot. Since the majority of the film is shot in the real world, the animators have an even tougher task of both creating visually appealing characters and convincing the audience that they are really there. On both accounts, it seems like the bare minimum was achieved. There is nothing terrible about the character designs, though it interacts more like rejecting cereal mascots than real life characters in CGI form. The human actors just look at people talking to a blank space instead of interacting with real animals.

The characters are written as one-note and as flat as can be. You have E.B. (voiced by Russell Brand) the main character who wants to be something other than what they are destined to become. There’s Frederick “Fred” O’Hare (played by James Marsden) the live action protagonist who is forced by his family to look for a job. Is it me or is it suspicious that Marsden’s character is named O’Hare, the same name of the villain from The Lorax (2012). I mean, they are both Illumination films. There is Mr. Bunny (voiced by Hugh Laurie) the parent telling the lead to take their place among society. And then there is Carlos (voiced by Hank Azaria) the villain who wants nothing more than to take over Easter. Also, he can’t decide whether he wants to be a Mexican or Italian stereotype. Overall, the characters are amazing, bland and uninteresting.

This movie is a lot like Free Birds (2014), in the sense that its popularity only rides on the fact that it is the only big budget animated feature in its specific holiday genre. With the cliched-filled story, average animation, and forgettable characters, this is one of those films that people will want to get through quickly just so they can go on with their lives. At best, it can be used as background noise when the little ones are going on their annual Easter egg hunts.

Score:

3/10