Just don’t go down this rabbit hole
If you’re tempted to see Peter Rabbit — hop on over to Paddington 2 instead
So here’s the thing: If you see only one movie this season about an anthropomorphic British mammal, drawn from a beloved children’s series and possessed of a gluttonous personality, a blue jacket and no pants — make it Paddington 2. It’s still in theatres, and it’s delightful.
Peter Rabbit, on the other hand, plays like an adaptation of Animal Farm without the Soviet conceit or underlying moral grounding. My son, whom I brought to a press screening as a representative of the younger generation, liked it a little more than I, but said it seemed crafted by four writers who were never in contact with one another.
I’ll go him one better: It seems to have been knocked together by four rabbits who were never in contact with one another. In fact, there were only two, both human: Rob Lieber, who made a similar mess out of Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day; and director Rob Gluck, whose career has had its lows (2009s Fired Up!) and highs (2010s Easy A). Peter Rabbit lies between these extremes. It’s just a hop, a skip and a jump — and several more hops — away from greatness.
Beatrix Potter also gets a credit, having written the original Tale of Peter Rabbit in the early 1900s. She died in 1943, just a few years after refusing to allow Walt Disney to make an animated film out of her books. In retrospect, this may have been a mistake. Disney would never have included a gag in which Peter’s nemesis, Mr. McGregor, gets repeatedly electrocuted, smacked with rakes or caught in foot traps.
That’s Young Mr. McGregor, by the way, set up as a love interest for Potter herself (Rose Byrne), after the narrative blithely does away with Old Mr. McGregor. Peter Rabbit’s mother has also been mysteri- ously excised from the story, leaving Peter (voiced by James Corden), and his three sisters as the main lagomorphic (i.e., rabbity), characters in the film.
Domhnall Gleeson does a decent job in the thankless role of a neurotic Londoner who inherits his great-uncle’s rural cottage in Windermere, only to find it overrun with a variety of wild vermin, all of whom are casually tolerated by neighbour Bea. (Well of course they are: She doesn’t have a vegetable garden for them to plunder, does she?)
He takes to ever more extreme measures to rid himself of the rabbits, to the point where even Wile E. Coyote might say to him: “Don’t you think that’s a bit extreme?” Meanwhile, Peter and friends retaliate in kind, and with a bizarre mix of naturalistic movements (when they run they look like rabbits) and more human qualities, such as opposable thumbs, dance moves and the abili- ty break the fourth wall.
It all adds up to a uneven mess, culminating in the scene in which Peter travels to London by train to set things right. British Rail informs me that the trip from Windermere terminates at Euston Station, but I couldn’t help but think of nearby Paddington. It’s a much better destination for kids, their parents and talking animals alike.