Hop: Osterhase oder Superstar?

I am glad, finally a holiday comedy about Easter, and like Garfield and Scooby Doo, It mixes live action with CGI animation. Now I really liked the animation, the Easter Bunnys warehouse where they make candy for Easter is the most awesome thing since Willy Wonkas Chocolate Factory. Not to mention Hugh Laurie, Russell Brand, and Hank Azaria voice there characters perfectly, and provide much of the films humor.

Now the live action was not as funny, at times James Marsden slips by with a funny line. but other than that it's all pretty stale. Even David Hasselhoff making fun of himself, hasn't he done enough of that already. I know what they are trying to do, a Santa Clause, but with Easter. And they did alright, but they could have done a little better.

Just as how Santa Claus stories work through their way through the Christmas period, Hop brings forward the Easter season some three weeks early with a kids film that combines the best of live action and animation in yet another talking animal story, which is something quite expected when you combine filmmakers who had worked on Alvin and the Chipmunks, and the producers of Despicable Me, who probably would have floated the idea that cute yellow things make for comedic villains since they're going against type.

Hop is a tale about sons being unable to live up to the ideals of their fathers, being told what is expected, being seen as soft and unable to exert any say in what they really want to do in life. When we first see EB (or short for Easter Bunny, voiced by Russell Brand), "plush toy" comes to mind for its incredibly cute design when the wide eyed bunny tours and allows the audience to see first hand what would be the equivalent of Santa's operations that the Easter Bunny adopts, with multitudes of chocolate and candy making machines all outsourced not to elves, but to chicks to operate and churn them out, before making deliveries in one single day to all the kids.

But as EB grows up, his propensity to take on the family business, or rather his calling in life, takes a hit and wanes because he aspires to dabble in music and play drums. Rather than take over from his father, he runs away to Hollywood to seek out his fortunes and thereby putting Easter potentially on hold, and bumps into Fred O'Hare (James Marsden), who is also kicked out of his family home because his father and family members find it a tad ridiculous that he mucks around home for the last one year doing nothing. So it's a chance meeting of two similar sons set to prove themselves in a whole new world, and bring about the usual kids theme of friendship, perseverance, and plenty of juvenile comedy. Look out for David Hasselhoff playing himself, and the requisite cute bunnies collectively known as the Pink Berets who would probably steal the show.

I have to admit though that some of the jokes do work, since it's quite a wide spectrum from the usual toilet humour - EB poops delicious, multi-flavoured candy! - to a hilarious get up of the song I Love Candy with the duo continuing a ruse from earlier involving EB pretending to be a plush toy. This aspect of the film compensates for the lack of sophistication of the plot which for some weird reason has Fred not being satisfied with having validated that he's not crazy with his young time witnessing of the Easter Bunny going about his one day routine, but desiring to instead become a bunny himself.

That brought about what I thought was the most direct reference back to Despicable Me with the mindless bantering amongst the minions of the Easter Bunny's factory, where second in command Carlos (Hank Azaria), in the absence of EB and his dad getting old, secretly coverts a plot to usurp the festivity and run the entire show himself. While the minions have different designs and varying degrees of intelligence, the chicks here adopt a uniform look, and as expected there's always a smart alecky character to become cannon fodder for laughs.

Besides priming itself for a respectable box office result when the Easter holiday rolls along, what this film would probably successfully do is to ramp up demand for rabbits and chicks amongst its targeted demographic, so parents, do spare a thought and taper those short term wants. Strictly for the kids. Do stay tuned until after the end credits for a scene to witness James Marsden's Mandarin diction.

The Easter Bunny is to Easter what Santa Claus is to Christmas. Legend has it that both the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus go around people's houses at night before their respective days bringing gifts- though in the case of the Easter Bunny, these tend to be more specific to coloured eggs, candy and chocolates. Despite their similarities, Hollywood seems to favour Santa Claus over the Easter Bunny, going by the number of Yuletide-themed films around the plump, jolly, white-bearded man in a red suit and the dearth of films about the latter.

Cinco Paul and Ken Daurio however attempt to change that with their part-live action, part-animated romp "Hop", a through and through family film centred around the Easter Bunny. Also the writers of last summer's surprising hit for Chris Meledandri's Illumination Entertainment's "Despicable Me", Paul and Daurio display much less of their ingenuity this time round. Indeed, their adaptation of the Easter Bunny legend borrows too heavily from Yuletide films like "Elf", "Fred Claus" and in particular "The Santa Clause" that it almost feels that they have merely switched elves for chicks, reindeers also for chicks and Santa for the Easter Bunny.

The references are apparent right from the start, when we are first introduced to the Easter factory where all the candy and chocolates for the kids are prepared. Production designer Richard Holland's vision of this is no more than "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" crossed with Santa's workshop in any of the films mentioned above, and despite the riot of colours, there's little wildly inventive that will make you go 'wow'. Same goes for the Easter Bunny's mode of transportation, which is really an egg-shaped sleigh pulled by hundreds of tiny chicks; or the source of its magical powers, derived from the Egg of Destiny or the equivalent of a Santa suit.

Paul and Daurio's reliance on these Yuletide film tropes extends as well to the plot of the movie, which essentially is the story of the heir- apparent to the Easter Bunny throne, E. B. (voiced by Russell Brand, who also makes a live-action cameo later on) absconding his responsibilities to pursue his dreams of musical superstardom much to the chagrin of his father (Hugh Laurie). You can probably guess the narrative pretty much from here on end- just add in another out-of-work slacker, Fred (James Marsden), who is in the same real-life situation as E.B. with his father (Gary Cole).

Besides sorting out their own father-son issues, E.B. and Fred will also spend time bickering with each other, before bonding through a fictional David Hasselhoff (playing himself) reality show "Hoff Knows Talent" (an all-too obvious riff on "America's Got Talent") and a sing-along at a school play where both take turns singing 'I Want Candy'. There's also a subplot which sees E.B's father's number two, a duplicitous Spanish chick Carlos (voiced by Hank Azaria), insinuating that he be crowned the next Easter Bunny in E.B's absence- but this is played for little more than to allow for an frenetic action-packed finale at the end.

Though originality isn't one of its strong suits, director Tim Hill's (Alvin and the Chipmunks) film does take- pardon the pun- more than a few hops in the right direction. Most prominently, Hill's experience with such part-animation, part-live action fare is amply demonstrated in the seamless blend of E.B. and the rest of the computer-generated animals with their human counterparts- special mention goes to E.B, whose features and expressions are beautifully and vividly animated. Impressive too is Illumination Entertainment's ability to create 'oh-so- adorable' sidekick characters, the chicks including Carlos and the over- enthusiastic prone-to-dancing Phil reminiscent of the little yellow minions from "Despicable Me" and equally irresistible.

Hill has also assembled a lively voice cast led by the vivacious Russell Brand. Though there is none of the raunchiness usually associated with him (think "Get Him to the Greek"), Brand's distinctive laid-back charm is still intact and fits his character perfectly. Just as outstanding is Hank Azaria's voicing of both Carlos and Phil. Though the two characters couldn't be more different in nature, Azaria finds a unique voice for each, and is especially good at delivering Carlos' punchlines with aplomb- who can forget Carlos' line 'It's called a coup d'état which is a French for coup d'état!'

And thanks to Brand and Azaria's voice talents, as well as the excellent blend of live-action and animation, "Hop" still proves to be more than agreeable family entertainment- even if laugh-out-loud moments are fewer and further-in-between than one would expect. Not to mention of course that the familiarity with Yuletide films of Santa Claus is unmistakable, which also makes "Hop" just as undemanding, if not unexceptional, fare as most of these movies. Still, it's colourful, it's buoyant, and it's cute, so that's definitely enough to keep the kids entertained.

• www.moviexclusive.com

I know there's people that say Minions is worse, but I thought that film was just okay. In fact, at least I take that over this. Hop is by far, the weakest movie from Illumination. Yeah, it has some good ideas its going for, some good animation that brings Easter to life and actors that have a decent amount of effort. But considering this is from the creators that brought Alvin And The Chipmunks, the story is lazily predictable. The tone tries to be modern for the young crowd making it outdated. The humor is mostly weak. The characters feel they aren't something for an Easter movie. And the ending was highly childish. The one thing I can recommend this is for the children for Easter time. As for anyone else, I think it's best to stick with the Sonic The Hedgehog movie from 2020. It may have the same plot line as this, but at least a good version. The idea sounded great of something like one of those Christmas specials, but the movie itself is just easily mediocre. Maybe one day we'll get a good Easter movie, but this is not really it. Happy Easter.

E.B.(voiced by Russell Brand) lives on Easter Island, haha, beneath one of the giant stone heads. His father (Hugh Laurie), you see, is THE Easter Bunny and has been training EB to take over the job when its time. That day is very near, making EB fret, for he is into drumming and longs to be a rock star. On the island, the candy-and-egg factory is run quite well by Carlos the Chicken (Hank Azaria). In fact, Carlos thinks that a rooster can BE the next Big Bunny, it shouldn't be a species thing. As the holiday approaches, EB bolts off the island, via a secret tunnel, to Hollywood. At that moment, Fred (James Marsden) is driving away quickly from his digs at his parents house. Mom (Elizabeth Perkins) and Dad (Gary Cole) have just held an "intervention" to explain that Fred must find another job and get his own place. SOON. Naturally, Fred's car bumps into EB but the bunny is okay. In fact, since Fred is going to house sit at a huge mansion in Beverly Hills, thanks to his well-connected sister, EB thinks it is the start of a beautiful friendship between slacker and rabbit. Although the bunny does stir up trouble, Fred manages to get him an audition with the Hoff (David Hasselhoff, as himself) and EB wins over the talent critic and scores a big gig. Meanwhile, Fred loses out on another job opportunity and tries to convince the rabbit that maybe HE, Freddie, could take over the Easter Bunny position. Back on Easter Island, Dad Rabbit is frantic to find his son while Carlos launches a stealth mission to take over the entire operation. How will things resolve? What a beautifully animated movie this is, colorful and so superb at combining computer generated images with live action. See it on the biggest screen you can find, even if it means seeking out the rich relatives' home theater and begging for access. Also, the cast is nice, although Marsden, despite being a charming performer, may be too old for the part of Fred, as other critics have notices. Azaria, Laurie and especially Brand add much to the film with their voices roles and the other actors are nice, too. The sets are likewise very beautiful, especially the elegant Beverly Hills Mansion where the two unlikely housesitters go. Therefore, its near-miss as a must-see belongs to the uneven script and the rather tame and slower direction. There are clever lines and situations to be found but, alas, there's also too much banality. Nevertheless, I do urge families to hop the hop and get a showing of Hop going. It is certainly will be quite a nice view for the crew.