Hop

Hop is a 2011 American 3D Easter-themed live-action/computer-animated fantasy comedy film from Universal Pictures and Illumination Entertainment (of Despicable Me fame), directed by Tim Hill and produced by Chris Meledandri and Michele Imperato Stabile. The film was released on April 1, 2011, in the United States and the United Kingdom. While this film did decently at the box office, the movie received mixed-to-negative reviews from critics and audiences, making it the weakest film from Illumination so far.

Plot
On Easter Island, E.B. (Russell Brand) is the Easter Bunny's (Hugh Laurie) son who'd rather drum in a band than be like his father; meanwhile, Fred O'Hare (James Marsden), a young human man, is out of work and wishes to become the next Easter Bunny himself. While all of this is happening, a Chick named Carlos (Hank Azaria) is plotting to take over Easter.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) Similar to Free Birds with Thanksgiving, while the premise of an Easter-themed movie is interesting, it's executed very poorly with a jumbled mess and uninspired plot and long scenes that pad out for extremely long, and some of these scenes have no effect to the film, at all.
 * 2) Terrible voice acting, for the most part, especially Russell Brand's performance as the titular E.B, who sounds rather whiny and also annoying.
 * 3) A majority of the characters are stupid and unlikeable, especially Fred O'Hare, who is a bit of a jerk to E.B, although this can be understandable since he tried to find the Bunnies' ship which he was unable to see.
 * 4) This film can get a bit too dark in places.
 * 5) Immature humor which tries too hard to be funny to the point that some of them involved feces, inappropriate adult humor, offensive, or just plain stupid jokes (in a movie for kids) including but not limited to:
 * 6) The Playboy Mansion scene with E.B trying to get in to stay.
 * 7) E.B defecating jelly beans, which is even worse than the Minions' toilet humor.
 * 8) The final battle is extremely anti-climatic. E.B. defeats the Carlos-Bunny hybrid by... making Carlos's sidekick Phil dance so much that he accidentally makes Carlos crash his sled into a wall.
 * 9) Tons of shameless product placement, such as Cadbury chocolate, Playboy Mansion, PS3, and Guitar Hero, in fact, this feels very out of place for an Illumination movie, despite being understandable since it's the company's first (and only) Live-Action film.
 * 10) Although it is somewhat an amusing scene, there is a scene involving a Chinese stereotype where E.B's father is being chased away by a Chinese woman during his failed attempt at delivering Easter candy in China.
 * 11) Similar to The Smurfs & Sonic The Hedgehog, It follows many of the big cliches of hybrid films: An animated character ends up in a big city and finds a random guy to live with and silly antics ensue.
 * 12) The opening sequence spoils the ending.

Good Qualities

 * 1) The soundtrack is really good and is probably the best part of the film.
 * 2) There are some good funny moments here and there, such as the scene where E.B.'s dad gets chased away by a Chinese lady (despite BQ#8), and all of Carlos and Phil's scenes.
 * 3) Carlos is a really good antagonist and his voice actor (Hank Azaria) can be quite entertaining.
 * 4) Some cute character designs, especially the bunnies.
 * 5) Nice CGI animation on the animated characters, as with Illumination's other films.
 * 6) The scene where they all sing "I Want Candy" is nothing short of awesome.
 * 7) Although his character Fred O'Hare is unlikable, James Marsden still gives a reasonably realistic and relatable performance, despite it not being that great.
 * 8) David Hasselhoff has a very entertaining, show-stealing cameo as himself, and at one point they even reference Knight Rider when he says that his best friend's a "talking car".

Videos
dIR5FSQK7mw HXkcA1qM770 1bDkItButZc

Trivia

 * To date, Hop remains the only Illumination film to be a live-action/computer-animated hybrid.

Comments
