American Rabbit

I remember watching this movie multiple times as a lass. I saw it again recently and found it to be just as charming now as then. The characters are very cute and I liked the fact that there were some very weird elements to this movie. For one thing, I have a vague memory that the Chocolate Moose and his son were trapped in the same kind of room that Louie's vampire "wife" was held in "Interview With a Vampire" (where the sun could vaporize her). Well, here, the moose were trapped in this room so they'd melt, as they're actual moose made of chocolate. Disturbing. And of course there's the little twist involving the villain and his pet vulture.

Definitely give this a look, especially if you'd like to see some cute anime characters.

Have you ever seen a movie that played out like a game of mad libs with its basic concept? That is exactly what The Adventures of the American Rabbit feels like. Based on the poster art character of the same name by Stewart Moskowitz, this 1986 kids flick about a rabbit with Americanized superpowers plays out about as well as a story with no sense of direction. What sounds like a fun story of Rob the rabbit being informed of his incredible abilities and using it against forces of evil is just not engaging in the slightest.

In his own review for the Los Angeles Times, animation historian Charles Solomon said, "Both the writing and the animation in The Adventures of the American Rabbit are so inept that the viewer expects the governor to interrupt the film and declare the theater a disaster area!" While I wouldn't go that far, there is so little to gain from this feature due to how all over the place it is. One minute, Rob will be needing a job as a pianist, then he and other animals will be making a peace rally against a motorcyclist gang of jackals, then Rob and the music group he's with will be on the road searching for the right gig, then the villain will come in and threaten destruction against New York City, blah blah blah. Nothing in this film makes a lick of sense and the film hardly gives us a reason to care for the characters. It's sad when the best character in the movie is a gorilla named Ping Pong due to being the most consistent in his good moral values and the fact that he is voiced by Lorenzo Music. Most of the voice acting is fine for what it is, but the voice of the villain is so generic it's not even funny.

I guess if there's anything to take away from this film, at least the soundtrack is kinda catchy. The occasional rock music courtesy of Mark Colman and Howard Kaplan of Leech and Eddie fame is lively enough to bob your head up and down to, and the occasional flashy animated effects are cool to watch. Even beyond that, the animation direction is too stale and stilted to engage much momentum in. The character designs are cute enough on their own and do showcase a lot of variety in Moskowitz's style. Perhaps something more stylized would have helped, but the actual art direction feels too stale and safe to get much interest out of. It's interesting that Toei Animation was behind this film given the character's then huge popularity in Japan, because their finest work will not be found here at all. That said, I do think it's cool that they simultaneously produced English and Japanese dubs for the film at the time of its production, hence the immense collaboration between two different countries.

So unless you're a little kid or a fan of Moksowitz's work, American Rabbit isn't really worth recommending. It's harmless as far as family adventure films go, but there's not much momentum to gain from it in the long run. I actually thought I was going to be in for a hilarious 4th of July treat, but then again this film originally released in February, so I was surely mistaken. Oh well, at least we now know what inspired Chris Chan before Sonic came around (no, I'm not making that up).

THE ADVENTURES OF THE American RABBIT is so incredibly un-noteworthy I'm vaguely obsessed with it. The idea that something this insubstantial could get a theatrical release is a bit amazing--but then again, I've seen THE OOGIELOVES. In a theater.

What can you really say about a film like this? The plot is so thin that the same things happen two or three times just to fill up the space--and a lot of what goes down is completely irrelevant. This could have been a one-hour TV special, no problem. There's nothing really approaching substance here.

Is there anything to recommend it? Curiosity, I guess. It's well- intentioned (more or less). The villain is kind of cool-looking. It's weird and illogical enough as a whole to be worth laughing at. It's a film called THE ADVENTURES OF THE American RABBIT and it actually got shown in theaters. You can watch it on Netflix, on YouTube, or do your best to imagine it based on the bare plot summary.

If you were stuck watching this, it would be preferable to chewing off your own leg. It would even be preferable to being knocked unconscious. But...yeah.

Crude, uninspired cartoon involving a superhero rabbit's adventures (named, appropriately enough, the American Rabbit) who is forced to confront a villainous jackal's framework. The American Rabbit's Adventures are strictly for the children, although it seems entirely possible that even here they will find little to embrace. The animation style is certainly subpar, which by contrast makes even the fastest straight-to-video release of Disney look amazing. The voice work is passable, but the dialog is atrocious; the action seems to pause every 15 minutes like clockwork, or so as an important message is doled out (i.e. winning is not all). And let's not even get into the parody of the outfit of the American Rabbit, which is basically an American flag sponsored by roller skates (maybe the getup be more than ' 80s?)

I remember seeing this as a kid in 1986 (at that time I didn't know what the cold war was.) But I liked it. what I remember most was the music, (especially when Rob the Bunny would transform into a bunny with roller skates and look like the American flag.) regardless of the message, it was a cute movie 3 stars