Peter Rabbit

The bunnies are here with their becoming animations and colourful carrot-lettuce-tomato landscape drawn diligently by the animators while Peter Rabbit and his clan of three sisters and bro-pal running amok in a farm taken away from them by a grumpy old man who ate up Peter’s father in a rabbit pie years ago.

Beatrix Potter’s 19th Century creation, these bunnies in their 2018 avatar are much too raucous, ungainly, in disciplined and creatures of a chaotic world to honour the originals but for the Indian audience, not very familiar with the before of the story, Peter Rabbit is a funny animated movie which may not be a wonder but is no blunder either.

The story revolves around a family of bunnies and their love for the girl next door, a village beauty who has a soft corner for wildlife, the bunnies included. The farmhouse is inherited by a stiff upper lip young Londoner who famously says in the movie: “I have nothing against the countryside, I just find it disgusting that’s all”. He works for Harrods, is denied a promotion thanks to nepotism, goes amok and is thrown out.

So, he goes to the farmhouse to sell it to the highest bidder so that he uses the money to build his own Harrods replica and rule the kingdom of big dreams. Not all his plans go the way he wants them too, including him falling for the girl next door as the bunnies fume and fret about her love for them going away in the wrong direction.

Thus begins a war of attrition between the bunnies and Tom with episodic hilarity introduced in good measure to carry on the proceedings around electric shocks, butt trappers and some such instruments of war.

The film is colourful, interesting, emotional and humorous for children to laugh out loud and take out their chins from popcorn packs to be with the jacket-clad bunnies of their choice.

Source: Sunday Pioneer, 8 April, 2018