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Last summer, Universal’s first big animated feature, .php>Despicable Me, became a surprise hit. So when the studio announced that Despicable Me screenwriters Cinco Paul and Ken Daurio would once again team up with animation house Illumination Entertainment for another animated adventure, it sounded like Universal could have another hit on their hands. Instead, Hop turned out to be a horrible case of the dreaded sophomore slump.
This hare-raising adventure is a kind of coming-of-age story about E.B. (voiced by Russell Brand), the young son of the Easter Bunny (voiced by Hugh Laurie). Though it’s time for him to step up and take over his father’s job, E.B. decides that what he really wants to do is play drums in a rock band. So, with Easter approaching, he runs away to Hollywood to pursue his dream.
Once he arrives in California, E.B. meets Fred O’Hare (James Marsden), an unemployed slacker whose parents have finally had enough. Suddenly, as Fred struggles to find a job, he also finds himself trying to restrain a rebellious talking rabbit.
Meanwhile, back at Easter Island, the Easter Bunny panics over the loss of his son while his right-hand chick, Carlos (voiced by Hank Azaria), plots a coup.
Rarely is it a good idea to mix live-action and animation. Sure, it worked for Who Framed Roger Rabbit? But, usually, it just comes off looking like a pointless gimmick—like it does in Hop.
In the beginning, Hop seems to have the slightest bit of promise. Though the story about a rebellious son whose dreams don’t live up to his father’s expectations has been done about a million and a half times before, the colorful candy-factory animation and quirky characters make the film at least mildly interesting. But once the animated world crosses over into the live-action world, all bets are off.
The parts of the story that take place in the real world seem random and unnecessary, with painfully-acted scenes that feel about as useful as that plastic green fluff that’s used to fill Easter baskets (you know…the annoying stuff that sticks to your fingers when you’re trying to retrieve the jellybeans from the bottom of the basket). From job interviews gone horribly wrong to disastrous Easter plays, they’re just filler. They do very little to propel what little story there is—and they’re not even all that entertaining. And when it finally comes down to a scene involving a live David Hasselhoff giving life advice to an animated talking rabbit drummer, you’ll know that the movie has finally hit rock-bottom.
If Hop had stuck to telling an animated story about an attempted coup on Easter Island, there’s a chance that it could have still been somewhat entertaining. After all, Azaria’s fuzzy revolutionary leader, Carlos, is the best thing about the movie (almost like a fluffy, winged Gru). But the rest of the story just isn’t all that interesting. It’s haphazard and scatterbrained and almost completely pointless. So while kids may get a giggle or two out of Marsden’s overacting—and the fact that E.B. can poop jellybeans—grown-ups shouldn’t hold out a whole lot of hope for Hop.
