Day 296
Sunday 22 April 2018 8.33pm
Peter Rabbit 2018
A Will Gluck Film
Peter Rabbit (James Corden), the young Macgregor (Domhnall Gleeson), and a nice neighbour (Rose Byrne), who paints pictures that look like those illustrated by Beatrix Potter, star in this fresh, amusing, animated comedy. Filmed at Fox Studios and in NSW (and animated wherever Sony Pictures Animation farm it out), it is abundant in its slapstick comedy, with human caricatures as two-dimensional as it’s animated animals. In fact, Peter and his friends are created to have more emotional dimensions than the humans. Peter is surprisingly wise and knowledgeable about life – animal and human – and unexpectedly able to take responsibility for his own actions and intelligently understand how his behaviour has affected others.
Although it lacks the big laughs of films like Shrek and Despicable Me it has a softer, more emotional, side that is more in keeping with Finding Nemo or Toy Story.
Will Gluck, the director (and co-writer) has raised his game after his debut film, Fired Up! He’s got better, more centred, with a better idea of where the good laughs are, his second film being the unexpectedly witty Easy A (2009).
The music was recorded in Australia by the Sydney Scoring Orchestra and conducted by Brett Kelly and mixed at Soundfirm.