Hop

An Easter cinema confection for 2011, Hop was conceived by the team that produced the above-average Despicable Me animated comedy. Blending live action and animated figures, Hop is a below-average, flimsy tale of the Easter Bunny heir apparent's desire to get out of the family business.

He (sporting Russell Brand's irritatingly self-pitying voice) has set his mind on being a drummer in Hollywood, where he escapes to and accidentally lands up the life of a layabout human house-sitting in Beverly Hills. He's played by James Marsden, a sweetly comic Prince Charming in his support role for Amy Adams in Enchanted. Now in his late 30s, the actor looks too facially ravaged to portray an irresponsible, cute dropout who ends up running the Easter Bunny empire (an underground candy factory with a workforce of Easter Chicks on, of course, Easter Island).

With technically competent CGI work and likable cartoon characters, the movie might appeal to very young viewers. They were transported to it in box-office-topping numbers for two weeks in the USA, and their parents may still be wondering why the Easter Bunny was English, as was his fretful father (Hugh Laurie). The jealous chief chick flatters and fumes with a Mexican accent (Hank Azaria's voice going south of the border again a la Birdcage, muy macho this time).

In 1988, Who Framed Roger Rabbit created a high bar for comedies putting actors and cartoon characters on the same sets. Hop's producers should have at least tried to reach the same heights of narrative development and clever characterisations. Sadly, the even older generation of Disney family movies appear to have had a stronger and more crippling influence on the storyboard. Its lead pair of writers (Cinco Paul and Ken Daurio) had adapted Dr Seuss's Horton Hears A Who! and Sergio Pablos's Despicable Me successfully, but this original effort fails to shine on any level.