Hop (film)

Plot

On Easter Island, a young rabbit named E.B. is intended to succeed his father as the Easter Bunny. Ignoring his father's orders, E.B. runs away to Hollywood to pursue his dream of becoming a music drummer. In Van Nuys, E.B. is hit by Fred O'Hare, an out-of-work, job-hopping slacker who was driving to his sister Sam's boss's house to house-sit after his parents forced him to move out. Feigning injury, E.B. persuades Fred to take him in as he recovers, but when E.B. causes trouble, Fred attempts to release him in the wilderness. However, E.B. persuades Fred to let him stay, claiming to be the Easter Bunny, whom Fred had witnessed delivering eggs as a child, becoming infatuated with Easter ever since.

Meanwhile, E.B.'s father sends his royal guards, the Pink Berets, to search for him and bring him back. In Hollywood, E.B. sees the Berets closing in on him and hides inside a business where Fred is having a job interview. E.B. enjoys a successful recording session with The Blind Boys of Alabama as their substitute drummer, but ruins Fred's job interview. In the process, E.B. gets a tip about a possible audition for David Hasselhoff, and after performing for him, he invites him to perform on his show.

Afterwards, Fred attends his adoptive younger sister Alex's school Easter pageant with E.B. hiding in a satchel. E.B., believing that the Pink Berets have found him due to the three bunny suit shadows on a wall and disgusted by Alex's awful rendition of "Peter Cottontail", dashes out and disrupts the show. Fred fakes being a ventriloquist with E.B. as his dummy, and the two upstage the show singing, "I Want Candy". Both Fred's father Henry and Alex are angry and upset about the upstaging, but Fred is inspired to be the Easter Bunny himself. Although skeptical, E.B. agrees to train him and finds that Fred has some genuine talent for it.

Meanwhile, the Easter Bunny's best friend and second-in-command Carlos the Chick secretly plots a coup d'état against him to take over Easter, inspiring the chicks to uprise against the bunnies, and begins training to become the "Easter Chick". The next morning, as E.B. is about to go to Hasselhoff's show, he notices the Pink Berets and prepares a decoy to fake his death, leaving Fred behind. The Berets see the decoy and, horrified that Fred has apparently killed E.B., capture him and take him to Easter Island. Fred is confronted by E.B.'s father and Carlos, who seizes control of the Easter factory, tying up E.B.'s father and placing him and Fred to be boiled alive. Meanwhile, E.B. starts to feel guilty for leaving Fred, and is convinced by Hasselhoff on his show to go back and help his friend.

E.B. races back to the factory to confront Carlos, but he is immobilized in gummy candy and tossed into the chocolate bunny carving line. E.B. survives by dodging the blades of the machine, while Fred eats through the black-licorice ropes, escaping with E.B's father. Carlos turns into a mutant chick-bunny hybrid due to the magic of the Egg of Destiny, and battles with E.B., defeating him easily due to his size. Carlos then tries to lead the Egg Sleigh out with one of his assistants Phil directing, but E.B. improvises a drum session that drives Phil to uncontrollably dance to the beat and provide the wrong signals, causing the sleigh to crash and subdue Carlos. E.B. and his father reconcile, and he and Fred are crowned co-Easter bunnies. Back at home, Fred reconciles with his father and his family, and then takes off with E.B.

Cast

The cast in order of production notes listing:

Live-action cast

• James Marsden as Frederick "Fred" O'Hare, a slacker who is trying to find work
  • Coleton Ray as Young Fred
• Kaley Cuoco as Samantha "Sam" O'Hare, Fred's sister
• Gary Cole as Henry O'Hare, Fred's father
• Elizabeth Perkins as Bonnie O'Hare, Fred's mother
• Tiffany Espensen as Alexandra "Alex" O'Hare, Fred's adoptive younger sister
• David Hasselhoff as Himself, a talent show host
• Chelsea Handler as Mrs. Beck, a video game company representative and Fred's interviewer
• Dustin Ybarra as Cody
• Russell Brand as a "Hoff Knows Talent" production assistant.

Voice cast

• Russell Brand as E.B., a teenage rabbit who dreams of becoming a drummer rather than following his father's footsteps to be the next Easter Bunny
  • Django Marsh as Young E.B.
• Hank Azaria as Carlos, a Spanish-accented chick who is the Easter Bunny's good friend and assistant, secretly scheming to take over Easter Island
  • Azaria also voices Phil, one of Carlos' assistants
• Hugh Laurie as Mr. Bunny (credited as "E.B.'s Dad"), E.B.'s father who is the current Easter Bunny
• Hugh Hefner as Voice at Playboy Mansion

Production

Animation and character design

The animated characters were designed by Peter de Sève.

The CGI animation and visual effects for the film were produced by Los Angeles-based Rhythm & Hues Studios (R&H). Ray Chen was the visual effects supervisor, and Andy Arnett was the animation director. Rhythm & Hues looked at the actions of real rabbits for some scenes. Arnett said, "One of the things that can happen with these faces is that if you don't put a lot of detail into the entire face, their mouths and cheeks can look kind of stiff. So it was important to us to be able to get a lot of flexibility in the face to make them feel alive and fleshy."

The easter egg factory involved Rhythm & Hues completing 250 computer-generated shots. Chen notes, "It's almost like a little full CG film inside the big film. The biggest challenge there was actually designing the factory. It originally had more of an underground feel with roots and rocks before we settled on something that looked more cathedral-like."

Music

Hop (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) is the complete soundtrack album for the film. The entire score was composed by award-winning composer Christopher Lennertz, who had previously composed the score for Alvin and the Chipmunks, another film directed by Tim Hill. The album was released on March 29, 2011, by Back Lot Music and Varèse Sarabande Records.

A 35th track, titled "The Pink Berets", is included in the soundtrack. Christopher Lennertz wrote the song with Ali Theodore, Bryan Spitzer, Jordan Yaeger, and Julian Michael Davis. The Deekompressors performed the song. Australian pop singer Cody Simpson performed the song "I Want Candy" for the film.

The Japanese dub features an exclusive theme song called "Hug Tomo" by Not Yet.

Release

Promotion and marketing

Universal teamed up with 92 major companies to promote Hop, including Holiday Inn, Krispy Kreme, Lindt, Kraft Foods, The Hershey Company, Build-A-Bear Workshop, Comcast (which acquired Universal's parent company NBCUniversal two months before the film was released), Kodak, Hallmark, HMV, and Burger King. A large range of licensed merchandise was released in connection with the film, including toys, stuffed animals, many sorts of candy, T-shirts, cookie decorating kits, baked goods and other products from Kraft Foods. Some items were available exclusively at Walmart stores. The premiere of Hop took place at Universal Studios Hollywood on March 27, 2011.

Video games

A tie-in video game was released for the Nintendo DS alongside the film. On March 29, 2011, a crossover game between Hop and Doodle Jump was released on the App Store for iOS devices. As part of Doodle Jump in-app purchases, a new level can be selected through naming at Hop game over screen.

Home media

Universal Pictures Home Entertainment released Hop on DVD and Blu-ray on March 23, 2012. Physical copies include featurettes and games, with a short film Phil's Dance Party.

Theme parks

Starting in April 2011, characters from the film would appear at Universal Studios Florida and Universal Studios Hollywood for shows and meet and greets to help promote the film.

The film would get its own unit in Universal's Superstar Parade at Universal Studios Florida in May 2012, before it would be replaced by a Secret Life of Pets-themed unit in November 2016.

Reception

Box office

Hop earned $108.1million in the United States and Canada and $80.4million in other countries, for a worldwide total of $188.5million. It was the 39th-highest-grossing film of 2011. To date, Hop is the lowest-grossing film released by Illumination.

In the United States and Canada, Hop was released on April 1, 2011. It earned $11.5million on its first day. The film debuted earning $38million across 3,579 theaters. Its second weekend earnings dropped by 42 percent to $21.7million, and followed by another $11.1million the third weekend. Hop left theaters by August 19, 2011, making it the year's 25th-highest-grossing film.

Critical response

Hop received mixed reviews from critics, with praise for the animation, music, and performances from the cast, particularly Marsden, and criticism for its humor, pacing and script. The review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes reported that out of 137 critic reviews, 25% of them were positive, with an average rating of 4.3/10. The site's consensus states: "It's impressively animated, but ''Hop'''s script is so uninspired that not even James Marsden's frantic mugging can give it any bounce." Metacritic assigned the film a weighted average score of 41 out of 100, based on 23 reviews, indicating "mixed or average" reviews. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale.

The subplot involving Carlos the Easter Chick was considered to be insensitive to Mexican Americans by one reviewer. Peter Debruge of Variety called it "hilariously un-PC". Philip French of The Guardian wrote: "It's a combination of the worst movies about trouble in Santa Claus's north pole toy factory and a version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory lethally laced with sugar." Also writing for The Guardian, Peter Bradshaw gave it one star out of four and called it a "soulless and depressing film, with plasticky production design."

Accolades

Hop was nominated in two categories at the 2011 Golden Trailer Awards: "Battle For Easter" (Cimarron Entertainment) for Best Animation/Family and "Carrot Quiz" (Mojo) for Best Animation/Family TV Spot. Character animator Andrew Arnett was nominated for Outstanding Achievement for Character Animation in a Live Action Production at the 39th Annie Awards. At the Golden Reel Awards 2011, the film received a nomination for Outstanding Achievement in Sound Editing – Feature Underscore.

References

Bibliography

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