‘Peter Rabbit 2’ goes from tea time to crime time
In the books and the first film based on them, “Peter Rabbit” and friends take on farmers and sometimes other animals. The sequel, “Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway,” takes on … itself?
Books and films are, of course, different animals.
And that’s OK. The second live-action/computer-animation hybrid movie in the series continues that evolution away from the gentle English countryside feel of Beatrix Potter’s writings in a meta way, winking all the while. Interestingly, it admits up front what it’s doing — updating beloved material for modern, commercial purposes — announcing it from the mouth of a pseudo-antagonist.
The sequel finds Peter’s humans (Rose Byrne as Bea, the modern stand-in for Potter, and Domhnall Gleeson as Thomas, formerly the critters’ foe) married and living mostly in harmony with the animals. There’s tension between Thomas and Peter (voiced by James Corden), however, as the uptight novice farmer can’t bring himself to trust the rapscallion rabbit. Super-successful London publisher Nigel Basic-Jones (David Oyelowo) wants to take Bea’s charming writings about Peter and company to the next level, causing some friction between Bea and Thomas. Meanwhile, Peter falls in with a bad crowd: a gang of city animals led by bad bunny Barnabus (voiced by Lennie James of the “Walking Dead” franchise) planning an audacious heist … of a farmers market.
“The Runaway” is very much the sequel it warns you about; it is the bigger-andbolder follow-up Nigel (standing in for Hollywood studio types) says the first entry needs. Nigel pitches notions — T-shirts, surfboards, Peter-as-Bad Seed — that would seem absurd to lovers of the books, whose gentility is perhaps their most memorable characteristic. Despite the rabbits’ and squirrels’ narrow escapes, their adventures might end with a nice cup of tea — something directly lampooned in the film as not the way things are done in a commercial universe. Part of the gag is that we know these silly ideas are exactly what will come to pass, so we roll with it. Still, hedging the bet that we won’t mind spending most of the film on a city crime spree instead of continuing Peter’s adventures in the country because they’ve proclaimed their intentions is