Peter Rabbit

Starring: James Corden (voice), Domhnall Gleeson, Rose Byrne, Sam Neill, Margot Robbie (voice), Elizabeth Debicki (voice), Daisy Ridley (voice), Sia (voice), Bryan Brown (voice)
Directed by: Will Gluck
Rating: PG
Genre: Animation, Adventure, Comedy
2018

Times Seen:
Tim: 1

Summary: Peter Rabbit (James Corden) tries to lead his friends into the off-limits vegetable garden, but the new owner (Domhnall Gleeson) proves to be a bigger adversary than imagined.

Review:

Tim: The idea of adapting Beatrix Potter's classic story into a live action/animated film is a solid one. The advances in technology allow Peter and his friends to be rendered in surprisingly believable detail. The movie also assembles a fairly impressive cast. The issue is quite simply with the script and the execution. There's good ideas here, but the story feels so repetitive that an hour and a half movie feels overly long. It felt like there wasn't enough substance here to support a whole movie.

The basic premise seems to be Peter and his friends want to get into a vegetable garden. The movie works hard to build a whole world around Peter, which sounds good in theory but is less effective in practice. There's a whole story about how Peter's parents were killed (backstory check, but a bit questionable). There's three sisters who felt far too interchangeable to me. There's some quite uninteresting subplot about which one is the eldest. I don't know, it felt really pointless. There's a host of other creatures there for comedy relief, none of whom make that much of an impact. There's an onscreen death of a human character, which was important for the story but felt a bit unwarranted in the grand scheme of things. Much of the movie involves two human characters which could have been interesting had their storyline not been so predictable and basic. That whole aspect of the film could be described as a romantic comedy, but told in a manner that would appeal to children. Not the best idea.

All of this (and a lot more) was done to take up screen time and tell a story that would last an hour and a half. The problem is that it's a big stretch and it is obvious. There wasn't enough to support this movie. This is fairly apparent once Peter and the new McGregor go to war. This is where the movie just feels repetitive. There's too many montages. None of it is all that interesting. At one point, dynamite is involved as a major plot point. It felt like the writers were so stuck on ideas that they threw anything in the mix to keep the film from ending after 60 minutes. It simply does not work.

The cast is actually good, so I feel bad that they signed on for such an average movie. James Corden was fine as Peter. I can see why he was chosen and I have no issues with his voice work. I really like both Rose Byrne and Domhnall Gleeson, but they just looked silly here. Byrne's character couldn't be any dimmer and Gleeson's character was too over the top. Both of them showed up and really tried to deliver good performances. I don't fault them nearly as much as what they had to work with. Director Will Gluck didn't do them any favors. It was cool to hear Daisy Ridley and Margot Robbie as two of the rabbits, but their characters were a bit too forgettable. I loved seeing Sam Neill here, but he doesn't have much screen time. As a whole, a lot of talent was put in place here, but very few are leveraged sufficiently.

I wouldn't say Peter Rabbit is a bad movie, it's just an wholly forgettable one. The story throws too much at us and much of it isn't especially compelling or entertaining. Non-discerning kids will certainly find enough here to entertain them, but younger ones will probably be perplexed at some of the odd choices the movie makes (the dynamite scenes, for example). I certainly didn't hate the movie, but it's so obvious it could have been significantly better.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating: 6



If You Enjoyed This Movie, We Recommend: Zootopia, Ferdinand, Paddington