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Peter Rabbit Movie Review

Peter Rabbit is a 2018 live-action/animated comedy film directed by Will Gluck and starring Rose Byrne and Domhnall Gleeson. It is a surprisingly solid flick.

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“I love helping people get what they want“

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The plot is pretty solid and although the film definitely isn’t old-fashioned enough to adapt properly its source material, it is still more traditional than modern which I did not expect at all so Sony took me pleasantly by surprise.

Now we certainly have seen stories like this one before. A woman who loves and cares for the rabbits on the farm starts a relationship with a newly arrived city boy who hates rabbits. Eventually the two reconcile. However, there is a very fresh twist here and that is Peter’s part in all this as he also made a wrong choice and thus ruined their relationship. I just loved that grey area in the characterization as it made the film more sophisticated than usual.

So the characters are flawed. The human characters are excellent, but the rabbits suffered as a result of that extended focus on humans. Joe McGregor is memorable in his grumpy attitude and Thomas is of course very amusing and so well realized. Bea is charming and very endearing. Rose Byrne and Domhnall Gleeson are particularly well cast as they fitted the roles so well. Their romance I found to be rather sweet and surprisingly effective.

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But as I said, the rabbits do not get enough development as they do not get enough screen time which is unfortunate as they could have been great. Peter is definitely fantastic as a very complex, flawed protagonist. But of the other characters, only Benjamin is somewhat memorable and some of the female bunnies can be pretty funny. But again, they are rushed, underdeveloped and unfortunately the rabbits here are only successful as a group, not individually.

Peter Rabbit is a live-action/animated film which is rare today so I liked watching it because of that a lot. The animation is particularly striking as the rabbits look incredible and so real. All the other animals do look great as well. They also blend superbly into the live-action environment and I never was taken out of it as the work done here is stupendous.

I also loved the attention to detail in the movie as their clothes are emphasized and the humor surrounding the clothes is so funny and clever. The cinematography is terrific and some of the garden imagery is wonderful. The film looks consistently cozy owing to charming exteriors and the garden. I also loved those book sequences which were a wonderful celebration of Beatrix Potter’s art.

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The film’s humor is uneven. Sometimes it worked well and I chuckled, but more often than not, the humor was too contemporary and too focused on your regular cartoon slapstick. The soundtrack also focused too much on modern music. So the film can be annoying, but it is mostly a solid effort from Sony Animation that worked more often than not and should satisfy particularly kids.

Peter Rabbit is a surprisingly solid film which has overly contemporary soundtrack and so-so humor, but it is mostly a good mix between old-fashioned and modern. The humans took too much screen time from the rabbits, but all the characters are refreshingly in grey areas, the romance is sweet and both the live-action and animation look terrific and are almost seamlessly mixed.

My Rating – 3.5