Peter Rabbit Movie Review

Peter Rabbit
U/A; Animation, Adventure, Comedy
Cast: Sam Neill, Natalie Dew, Terenia Edwards, Gareth Davies, James Corden, Margot Robbie, Rose Byrne, Tom Greaves, Daisy Ridley, Elizabeth Debicki, Sam Haft, Domhnall Gleeson, Sacha Horler
Director: Will Gluck
Rating:

Beatrix Potter's beloved bunny, Peter Rabbit, makes his big screen Live Action/CGI debut in a manic adventure that is more of a miss than a hit. Not as charming or entertaining as Paddington, this one tries a little too hard to orchestrate mayhem madness in a short but not entirely sweet spiel of cutesy badass trickery. And Potter fans are more than likely to frown at the bad-boy attitude enshrined as the leitmotif for fun and excitement here.

Peter Rabbit(James Corden), his sisters -triplets Flopsy (Margot Robbie), Mopsy (Elizabeth Debicki) and Cotton-tail (Daisy Ridley), as well as loyal cousin Benjamin Bunny (Colin Moody) are up to their usual tricks while foraging through old Mr. McGregor's (Sam Neill) vegetable garden. But McGregor passes on and his heir, a distant relative, a stuffy, starchy, nit-picking Thomas (Domhnall Gleeson)who has just been kicked-out of Harrods, comes to live there. And he is militantly anti-anthropomorphic, more so than his deceased uncle. So it's up to lovable siblings and their cousin, to teach him a much-needed lesson in being animal friendly.

The face-off, a battle-of-wills of a sort, between the two should have been more interesting but nastiness and mischief fail to raise laughs while the plotting stays sloppy and flimsy all along. The production values are high and the CGI work is excellent, so is the voice work but the overall excitement is missing from the frames. The animation of all the animals is faultless, fluffy and endearing. While you might appreciate the cuteness of the characters, you can't just get over the heavy-duty screenplay by the director Will Gluck and Rob Lieber, which is far more interested in it's overtly slapstick routines than in creating genuine comedy. Kids might not be put off though. After all it's holiday season!

Watch Peter Rabbit Trailer

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