In the world of large, Western-Christian holidays, Easter has always had the short end of the stick. Christmas has Santa, elves, toys, stockings, chimneys, cozy, snow-covered scenes, and too many jingles to count. Easter has, well, the Easter bunny, chicks, and eggs. Oh, and the whole Jesus Christ dying and rising from the dead bit. But in terms of filling the content of the season with things that gloss over the roots of the celebration, Easter has always had had more trouble shaking its religious identity.
So, what’s a Hollywood producer to do?
Simple, take the Easter bunny and make him more like Santa – then send him to Hollywood. That’s essentially what SpongeBob SquarePants vet Tim Hill has on his hands with Hop, a preposterous, mildly amusing tale about the renegade drummer son of the Easter Bunny, E.B. (that’s valley-short for Easter Bunny, folks), who runs away from the Easter Bunny’s magical kingdom (instead of the North Pole, Easter Island – yuck, yuck) and ends up rooming with another wayward, post-adolescent deadbeat, Fred O’Hare (James Marsden). Fred is a caricature of the 20-something American male, who doesn’t want a job and who can float between his parent’s couch and his sister’s boss’s mansion (which he house sits), avoiding the world until the perfect opportunity falls in his lap. What falls in his lap is a talking bunny – voiced by Russell Brand, no less – and wackiness ensues. Well, sort of. E.B. messes up Fred’s lethargic ways – mucking-up the house he is sitting, ruining a job interview – but then the two begin to take to each other. Fred brings E.B. to a band tryout with David Hasselhoff, and the bunny gets the gig. Realize your dreams, kiddos.
Hop tries to build a movie around a few running jokes and a classic, last minute, tension-filled climax battle between the bunnies and Carlos (Hank Azaria), the chick who is number two in Easter Bunny world and wants to take over Easter from E.B. One joke, that Fred seems to be the only person that finds it weird that E.B. is a talking bunny, doesn’t really makes sense nor is it funny. The second joke, that E.B.’s feces comes out as jelly beans, is kind of amusing at first, but it doesn’t hold up. What really drives Hop are the mechanics of its clichés, spoiling both Brand and the Hasselhoff cameo. There are some goofy bits for the kids to latch onto here and there, but ultimately Hop is too brash and smug to compete for any Christmas charm.
