Presented with the opportunity to do the first-ever big-budget Easter bunny flick mixing live action and animation, “Hop” gives us . . . a bunny who poops jelly beans.
That idea doesn’t fill you with seasonal joy? Neither will the rest of the movie, which stars Russell Brand as the voice of the cartoon rabbit “E.B.,” though he isn’t the Easter Bunny, but merely the son of same (voiced by Hugh Laurie).
E.B. wants to be a rock drummer, so he runs away from home, where he is about to be tapped to replace the retiring old man. (Wouldn’t Dad have about 300 more sons he could call on? Even in “The King’s Speech,” there was a spare prince retained for emergencies, yet “they breed like English” has never been much of a catchphrase.)
Naturally, the bunnies’ hideaway is Easter Island, where the giant statues lead to a Willy Wonka-like underground candyland. Given that Bunny-in-Chief duties seem to entail one day of work a year, E.B. could realize his dreams pretty easily (and figures this out at the end).
Instead, he dashes off to Hollywood, figuring he’ll move in to the place that welcomes “sexy bunnies from around the world,” the Playboy Mansion. (“Daddy, what’s ‘sexy’?” may be a question you didn’t expect to have to answer this April.)
Kicked out by Hugh Hefner, E.B. shacks up with an unemployed human layabout (James Marsden, who is starting to look like an unfinished rough draft of James Franco and, at 37, is 10 years too old for this role). That the slacker’s name is Fred O’Hare is about as rich as the comedy gets.
It looks like Fred is going to have to take over Easter Bunny duties for the reluctant prince, who is more interested in pursuing fame on David Hasselhoff’s talent show. (The Hoff, who has never been funny, except unintentionally, delivers a long, grim cameo. “I didn’t like it,” he tells E.B. of his drumming. “I loved it!” Your first-grader saw that one coming.)
No one involved in writing this woeful mess seems to have considered that Fred (who as a kid once saw the Easter Bunny land on his lawn in his magical, um, sleigh? Santa’s lawyers are on line one) doesn’t have the requisite supernatural powers to deliver Easter baskets all over the world simultaneously, or that a human Easter Bunny ruins the myth. We came for fluffy enchantment, not a 37-year-old slackjaw dipping hard-boiled eggs.
Let’s not get into the weird dissonance of the film’s stance toward the origins of Easter itself: We hear Marsden promise, “I’m gonna have a new job, a new place and a new life!” Please: Avoid resurrection references.
The bulk of the movie consists of Marsden attempting to look frantic covering for his new talking rabbit, but there’s no reason for Fred to hide the critter (indeed, it seems more likely that he’d want to inform the world). One minute E.B. is auditioning for the Hoff; the next Fred is pretending that E.B. is a mere ventriloquist’s dummy.
You’d forgive a senseless story if any of this were fun, but apart from the cuteness of the characters (especially the ornery gang of fuzzball chicks who scheme to take over from the bunnies), there isn’t much.
Only for a minute or two at a time do things brighten up, briefly at the candy factory (“Too much marsh, not enough mallow!”) or when E.B. pretends to be a stuffed animal because he likes being hugged by Fred’s sister (Kaley Cuoco of “The Big Bang Theory”).
In-jokes like a live-footage appearance by Brand and a reference to the rabbit stew in “Fatal Attraction” are simply dropped in with no payoff, and it’s a mystery why Chelsea Handler bothered to show up (to be given not a single funny line). She looks as bored as I felt.