“Hop” Movie Trailer Review

“Hop”

Movie Trailer Review

By our guest blogger, Joe Oliveto

Russell Brand may have cultivated a reputation as Britain’s bad boy, but that shouldn’t stop him from voicing a CGI bunny in a children’s movie, right? It’s doubtful that the crowd seeing this film will have read his book.

Whether or not they’ll enjoy this movie, however, is up for debate. On the one hand, even the younger kids in the audience will probably be able to relate to a character with big dreams caught in a small world; there’s a reason we all wanted to be Luke Skywalker at an early age. If they are young enough, they’ll also probably giggle at the concept of an animal that defecates jelly beans, in case the thematic depth doesn’t do it for them.

However, we have a sense that this blend of live action and animation won’t find a place among the successful kids’ films that our cinematic era has produced. Maybe it’s the fact that James Marsden, try as he might, seems like he has no desire to be in the film (and we got that much simply from the trailer). Maybe it’s the Hasselhoff reference—a joke the kids won’t get and the adults won’t laugh at. Maybe it’s the vague sense that this movie is trying too hard to cram all the successful elements of previous franchises into one studio product. We’ve got an animated character with attitude voiced by a generally adult comedian. We’ve got your typical quest for self-discovery. We’ve got your gross-out humor.

Sorry guys, but it still doesn’t look like “Shrek” to us.

Of course, it’s hard to tell with these movies. Even “Shrek” didn’t exactly look that good when its trailer debuted, and now it is remembered as the film that bridged the gap between adult and kiddie humor. We don’t expect “Hop” to be that successful, but you never know for certain.

The trailer is below. Thoughts?