Wow. I have rarely been as surprised as I was about an hour into the movie, Hop. I stepped into the theater making bets with myself not over whether I would want to scratch my eyes out but how many minutes into the film would I want to scratch my eyes out. I was surprised, not only by the lack of blood and eye goo on my fingernails, but by the fact the movie was actually GOOD. Seriously, it is good. No self-inflicted optic distress whatever is necessary.
Some will roll their eyes at this but this movie isn’t supposed to be for grown-ups and yet grown-ups can watch it. I have seen a lot of kid’s movies in the past decade. Most of them are unwatchable. Some of the animated films are fine but not really for young kids. Hop even has a few laughs in it, a minimum of cultural references aimed at the middle aged (there is one subtle very funny one though) and James Marsden is suitably clueless and charming in his role as a man-boy loser confronted with a talking rabbit.
David Hasselhoff makes an appearance and when he showed up the five year old I was with turned to me and said “He was in Spongebob!” I was also accompanied by a 13 year old who laughed.
The movie does a basic layout so the plot makes a modicum of sense but they do not spend a lot of time in this explication. Many such movies make a mistake and feel the need to “fill in the back story”. Most films with a talking rodent for a leading man should lay off the back story. It is a movie about a talking rodent. Just keep the fart and poop jokes to a minimum and for the sake of all that is HOLY do not kill any close relatives of any protagonists.
I don’t know about you but I am not sure five year olds need to deal with their parent’s mortality when they attend a movie. All those old Disney movies have a dead parent and revenge of some sort at their core. They suck. Yes! I know! Heresy. But Bambi and Dumbo are maudlin and boring as hell and really depressing. Kids don’t need to see that shit and I think you will find kids won’t watch that concentrated tedium these days. We were just more easily entertained as kids. We had three networks and pong for fuck’s sake. These kids have hand-held computer games with exponentially more memory than used by the computers that ran the Apollo program. Those old Disney movies are for old people. Your kids will HATE them.
“Ooooh the animation is so beautiful.”
So what? There are probably porno movies that had decent cinematography too. Doesn’t mean they are classic and art. Snow White can blow me. And lets not even get INTO Song of the South.
Disney produced stuff continued to suck until Pixar appeared and started making movies with less murder in them (even Tarzan has dead parents and the bad guy gets HUNG at the end…awesome! What is next a kid’s cartoon of Faulkner’s Sanctuary)? AND if anyone tells me Fantasia is a better movie than Wall-E I will punch them in the face (I threaten to do that a lot more frequently that I actually do it).
But I have digressed from Hop. This might be spoilerish but one of the things I liked was that pretty much no one in the film seems shocked by a talking rabbit. As Hasselhoff explains “My best friend is a talking car.”
The film just doesn’t waste time getting from point A to B. It isn’t memorable particularly but as one friend of mine said, “It is about time they made an Easter movie.” I was comparing it to Elf but it probably isn’t THAT good but it is that good-natured.
Some will roll their eyes at this but this movie isn’t supposed to be for grown-ups and yet grown-ups can watch it. I have seen a lot of kid’s movies in the past decade. Most of them are unwatchable. Some of the animated films are fine but not really for young kids. Hop even has a few laughs in it, a minimum of cultural references aimed at the middle aged (there is one subtle very funny one though) and James Marsden is suitably clueless and charming in his role as a man-boy loser confronted with a talking rabbit.
David Hasselhoff makes an appearance and when he showed up the five year old I was with turned to me and said “He was in Spongebob!” I was also accompanied by a 13 year old who laughed.
The movie does a basic layout so the plot makes a modicum of sense but they do not spend a lot of time in this explication. Many such movies make a mistake and feel the need to “fill in the back story”. Most films with a talking rodent for a leading man should lay off the back story. It is a movie about a talking rodent. Just keep the fart and poop jokes to a minimum and for the sake of all that is HOLY do not kill any close relatives of any protagonists.
I don’t know about you but I am not sure five year olds need to deal with their parent’s mortality when they attend a movie. All those old Disney movies have a dead parent and revenge of some sort at their core. They suck. Yes! I know! Heresy. But Bambi and Dumbo are maudlin and boring as hell and really depressing. Kids don’t need to see that shit and I think you will find kids won’t watch that concentrated tedium these days. We were just more easily entertained as kids. We had three networks and pong for fuck’s sake. These kids have hand-held computer games with exponentially more memory than used by the computers that ran the Apollo program. Those old Disney movies are for old people. Your kids will HATE them.
“Ooooh the animation is so beautiful.”
So what? There are probably porno movies that had decent cinematography too. Doesn’t mean they are classic and art. Snow White can blow me. And lets not even get INTO Song of the South.
Disney produced stuff continued to suck until Pixar appeared and started making movies with less murder in them (even Tarzan has dead parents and the bad guy gets HUNG at the end…awesome! What is next a kid’s cartoon of Faulkner’s Sanctuary)? AND if anyone tells me Fantasia is a better movie than Wall-E I will punch them in the face (I threaten to do that a lot more frequently that I actually do it).
But I have digressed from Hop. This might be spoilerish but one of the things I liked was that pretty much no one in the film seems shocked by a talking rabbit. As Hasselhoff explains “My best friend is a talking car.”
The film just doesn’t waste time getting from point A to B. It isn’t memorable particularly but as one friend of mine said, “It is about time they made an Easter movie.” I was comparing it to Elf but it probably isn’t THAT good but it is that good-natured.
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