By Emilio Frenk.
Director: Will Gluck
Cast: Domhnall Gleeson, Rose Byrne, Sam Neil,Marianne Jean-Baptiste, James Corden (Voice), Daisy Ridley (Voice), Elizabeth Debicki (Voice), Colin Moody (Voice), Fayssal Bazzi (Voice), Bryan Brown (Voice), Ewen Leslie (Voice) and Margot Robbie (Voice).
Rating: Average.
Will Gluck, director of “Easy A” and 2014`s remake of “Annie” brings “Peter Rabbit”, an animated feature film that has funny moments but had some issues.
Based on the children´s book “The Tale of Peter Rabbit” by Beatrix Potter, the movie centers in Peter (James Corden) a rabbit who constantly steals vegetables from Mr. McGregor´s garden. He does it with his cousin Benjamin (Colin Moody), and his sisters Flopsy (Margot Robbie), Mopsy (Elizabeth Debicki) and Cotton-Tail (Daisy Ridley).
All of them have a good friendship with Bea (Rose Byrne) a local woman who spends her time painting pictures of animals, specially rabbits.
One day Old McGregor dies of a heart attack and his nephew Thomas (Domhnall Gleeson) who works in a prestigious department store in London inherits his uncle´s house.
Now Thomas moves to the house in the country side where he will meet Bea and form a friendship.
Peter see´s trouble in this. Not only he will continue to steal vegetables but he needs to avoid that Bea has a relationship with Thomas, who will do anything in his power to get rid of the furry creatures.
I mentioned that “Peter Rabbit” is a movie with flaws and one of those was in regards of the screenplay written by Will Gluck and Rob Lieber.
I felt that the movie was too much for kids and the adult side I didn´t see to much in here. I understand that the film is based in a children´s book and the main target for this film are kids but also there are adults who see this film.
For a movie, specially in this genre not everything has to be for children. There has to be some adult humor in it.
Another element that I wanted to see more was the relationship of Bea with Peter Rabbit but you only see it once Domhnall Gleeson´s character is in the film.
I think that should have been more the focus of the film and I believe it could have been more interesting.
That is one of the things that made “Paddington 2” a very successful children´s film for the fact that had those elements. I had the funny feeling this film try to emulate some of “Paddington´s” style but did not succeed.
In the other hand the film has very funny and over the top moments, that normally I would be more hesitant about the over the top elements but here they do work.
The quality of the animation of the film is really good and I think that James Corden as Peter Rabbit is very funny in here.
Will Gluck is a director who knows how to make this kind of movies where the timing and comedy are crucial. He did a good job with “Easy A” where not only there was an original script, but very good performances, specially by Emma Stone.
I think that with “Peter Rabbit”, Gluck repeated the same mistakes he did with the remake of “Annie”, which was atrocious and one of the worst remakes I´ve seen in film in a while. The film became very redundant and too predictable.
Again with a movie of this genre you can get away with some level of being predictable but like everything in life there are some limits.
At the middle of the second act to the end of the film it´s where it had it´s issues and begin to fall apart.
Everything became so easy for the main characters and I wanted to see more obstacles in the way in order of achieving their goals.
The book is considered one the greatest children´s books ever written but the movie I felt that it could have had a better result.
“Peter Rabbit” is a movie that I believe a kid can enjoy it more than an adult and I believe that if more time would have been invested in the story I think we could have seen a better product since it´s a project that could have had potential.