Reviews

Review: Hop

Candy-colored, candy-pushing combo of animation and live action

By BETSY SHERMAN | March 31, 2011

2.0 Stars

This candy-colored, candy-pushing combo of animation and live action imagines an Easter Bunny who's a cross between Santa Claus and Willy Wonka and an Easter with no mention of the Passion of the You Know Who. It gets by on pep, expressive character animation, and a robust vocal performance by Russell Brand as E.B., heir to the Easter Bunny throne. This wascally wabbit would rather be a rock drummer than deliver painted eggs, so he escapes to Hollywood. His human enabler is Fred (James Marsden), a slacker with treasured memories of the Easter Bunny. The LA antics are woefully familiar, and not helped by Marsden's mugging. The action set in the candy factory manned by baby chicks — on Easter Island, ha-ha — should be more fun, but it too is lame. And though the subplot that has disgruntled, oversized chick Carlos (voice of Hank Azaria) trying to persuade his little yellow comrades to overthrow their bunny overlords is clever, it's clumsily executed.

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Topics: Reviews , Movies, Hank Azaria, Russell Brand, More

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