Deconstructing Hop
After I posted about Hop last week, my friend Kayleigh (you may remember her as my partner in snow squid construction) said she'd go with me. So. I've seen Hop, and Internets, it was far weirder than I expected. Because I am a giant nerd, I spent the flight from Boston to San Francisco yesterday trying to unpack the tangled gender/class/race politics in this movie for your trainwreck pleasure. Hop is a fascinating mess, Internets, and I am going to spoil the hell out of it. If you actually care about not being spoiled for a movie about a human who wants to be the Easter Bunny, then, um, I guess stop reading?
Right, onto the deconstruction!
First, Hop does not pass the Bechdel Test. There are more than two women (I count... 6 with speaking roles), but they don't really talk to each other. If they ever do (I don't remember this happening even though there are a few scenes with three female relatives in the same room), then it's about Fred (James Marsden, AKA Cyclops from X-Men), the male protagonist. But the weird gender fail is bigger than that. peacockharpy mentioned that the only female bunnies are strangely mute ninjas called the Pink Berets. I didn't quite get how bizarre that would be until I saw it, but I think before we get to that, we've got to set up the class and race issues.
So, okay. The fictional Easter Island of Hop, is basically a colonial outpost. The head of everything is an esteemed British Gentleman Bunny voiced by Hugh Laurie. Yes, Bertie Wooster is the Easter Bunny. And let me tell you, it's really weird to hear Bertie Wooster crush a young bunny's dreams and tell him to behave like a proper grown up gentleman bunny. It's like Bertie has turned into Aunt Agatha. Except as a plump CGI bunny in tails... But I digress. I was talking about colonialism.
So you've got a British boss bunny, and his snotty privileged British son and heir (voiced by Russell Brand, who is apparently a British comedian of some renown, though he was previously unknown to me), and they rule over a giant underground factory, where extravagantly Easter themed machines churn out acres and acres of candy. And these machines? Are run by chick laborers. Chicks as in baby chickens, not as in girls. There are supervisor bunnies, some of whom ride Segways, but all the laborers are chicks. Okay, oppressed race. Yeah, normal colonial setup. But it's weirder when you start to notice the bizarre status markers. Like, for instance, the only clothed bunnies are E.B. and his father. All the supervisors are naked, and so are all the chicks. Then there's the Latino leader of the chick laborers, who is twice the size of the other chicks. His name is Carlos (voiced by Hank Azaria), and he's a Large Angry Man Chick.
Which is when it gets even weirder. Because apparently in Hop world it's totally possible for chicks to be their own separate race unrelated to chickens. In fact, all the chicks in Hop? Are men. Yes. I could not make this up.
Carlos is pissed off because, hey, guess what? He has to spend his entire life in toil and drudgery for a condescending British bunny, who apparently only works one night a year. Because of FATE. Destiny. Magic. Dare we say Divine Right? I think we do, but more on that later.
Early on, before E.B. has gotten into sullen adolescence, he tours the factory with the childish enthusiasm and adoration of an entitled boy who admires his dad.
"Someday all this will be yours," Bertie Woosterbunny says, gesturing to the giant waterfall of jelly beans (which, considering that we later learn jelly beans are Easter Bunny poo, is kind of disturbing).
To my great disappointment, E.B. does not say, "What, the curtains?" Instead he seems excited by the mere presence of So. Much. Candy. Which, I can totally understand, honestly. As a kid, this would have been my dream come true. In any case, E.B. is so excited that he can't resist sampling the goods. Carlos sees this and tells him to stop, because the candy is for Easter baskets, not the denizens of Easter Island.
"He was taste-testing," Bertie says.
Carlos knows his place, so he gets all obsequious and plays along with Bertie, who suggests that the Marshmallow Chicks (not Peeps--for some reason this movie didn't seem to have product placement, which was also weird) have too much Marsh and not enough Mallow, but he can't resist a parting shot at the snotty kid. "Goodbye! Enjoy your life of privilege!"
This was, I think one of the funniest lines in the movie. Alas, it was undermined by the utter failure to recognize Carlos's anger as legit and the system as broken. Because this whole movie exists to uphold the colonial imperialist ideal. Which leads me to my next unfortunate observation: all people of color in Hop are villainous and/or deeply unpleasant (except for the blind musicians, who get a pass because they're blind and, um, magical negroes. Yay?).
So: POC roll call!
*Fred's adopted!sister, who is maybe 10? She's bratty and spiteful ("Sometimes I think you adopted me because Fred was so disappointing."), but at least apparently an accomplished kid. Well, at first glance anyway. She has the lead in her school play. "They usually assign the part of Peter Cottontail to a boy, but they made an exception on account of my singing voice is so strong," she says. But... on the night of the play we learn that she is actually tone deaf. We have basically no idea why she got this role. The whole scene exists for E.B. to get onstage with Fred and steal the show, relieving everyone in the audience whose ears might have started bleeding were it not for their spontaneous cover of Bow Wow Wow's "I Want Candy". The sister is pissed at Fred over this, but really, we're meant to sympathize with him more than her.
*The receptionist at the video game company where Fred's sister (the good, white, blonde one) manages to wangle an interview for her wayward brother. Fred arrives half an hour late for his interview, and the receptionist, instead of politely taking his name and telling him to wait, snaps at him. Fred says he did call and the receptionist glares at him and says, "That doesn't make you any less late." Then Fred scolds her for it, saying that she is the first impression people have of this company, and maybe she should think about that. Really, we should sympathize with her because Fred's an entitled slacker jerk, but the movie signals for us to be on his side.
*The blind musicians at the video game company, who are recording tracks for the blues version of Rock Band (here called Rock Master, because see above about no product placement). E.B. sneaks in and lays down some drum tracks, and they like him so they give him a flyer for David Hasselhoff's talent search. And they magically know that he is a bunny for some reason. Why? I have no idea.
*Carlos--the ONLY Latino chick on Easter Island. WTF squared. Carlos is belligerent, fat, lazy, deceitful, and power hungry. He organizes (bullies) the other chick laborers into staging a coup d'etat ("Which is French for... coup d'etat."), and steals the special scepter of Easter, which grants magical powers to the Easter Bunny. More about that in a bit, because wow is that bit Weird with a capital W.
And. That's it. Everyone else is white.
Right, so having set up the race and class dynamics, now we can get back to the gender weirdness.
On Easter Island, there are no women. Bertie Woosterbunny may well have reproduced by budding, because E.B. certainly doesn't seem to have a mother. But then, wait! There's the Easter Bunny's royal guard. They're women! Yes! These three (3) female bunnies do not speak, and they are only ever called on in extreme emergency. Maybe they are monks? I just don't know. But they're women. We know this because they are smaller and cuter than male bunnies, and they wear pink berets. They occasionally emit high pitched squeaks, but they never say words. They have high tech spy equipment like pink iphones, which they use to gather photographic evidence of where E.B. has run off to without ever actually catching him.
Because, yes, the big emergency is that the entitled bunny boy has run away from home, shirking his title for a life of itinerant drumming celebrity. And oh noes! how will the Easter Baskets get delivered if E.B. doesn't do it? Carlos wants the job, but that is, of course, laughable. A chick cannot deliver Easter! Only a bunny can do that! The really ironic thing is that at one point when Fred is arguing with E.B. about whether or not a human can be the Easter Bunny (spoiler: he can!), he says, "You're a bunny who delivers eggs! Shouldn't you be the Easter Chicken?" But of course, as we have seen, chicks are not really chickens in this universe anyway.
So. To sum up the Women of Easter Island: There are three, they're all mute, and despite being supposedly badass ninjas, they're easily outwitted by a slacker teenage boy bunny. To make matters worse, when they might actually save the day, in the big end battle, instead they get encased in chocolate by malevolent Carlos. I do love badass females who ... um ... do nothing of consequence. Oh yeah.
Oh, and just to make things weirder, whenever the Pink Berets appear, there's a special rap song that plays, explaining who they are. It is, naturally, performed by a man.
Anyway, let's visit the Hollywood section of Hop world, shall we? Perhaps gender politics is better there?
Well, in some ways, yes. I mean, there are at least more women who exist in Hollywood--all 6 of the women with speaking roles are there! Fred O'Hare is the only son in a family of five. We've already talked about adopted!sister. Fred's good (white, blonde) sister is a successful career woman, as yet unmarried. His mother is... mostly there to nag him. Dad is aggressive and wants his son to be a real go getter. He wants all his children to be this way, actually. In the school play scene, he heckles another father whose kid has the part of an egg. "An egg? Oh, that's nice. My kid is the Easter Bunny. Yeah. The one who makes it all happen." Foreshadowing! Of course as we've already seen, this turns out to be false since Fred and E.B. end up the stars of the show. Double foreshadowing!
Anyway, okay, so good!sister is good because... can you guess why, Internets? Did you say because she always supports Fred and is nice to him and exists only to try to help him? Yes! You're right! Oh, sure, sometimes she gets annoyed with him, but only in that, "Oh, that Fred!" sort of way. He's a slacker who won't get a job and apparently doesn't care about anyone but himself, but good!sister understands that really he's a good guy who needs her help. She gives him the key to her boss's mansion, gets him a job interview, and constantly provides emotional support. Even though we hear that she has just been promoted at work, we never actually get to know what she does, or really anything about her that doesn't directly relate to Fred and E.B. Oh, and she gets to be objectified too, because E.B. has the hots for her, and in one exceedingly creepy moment, plays with her hair while she hugs him close, assuming he's a very special plush toy ("He's so adorable! And lifelike! And ... warm..."). Fred finds this whole thing disturbing, too, so at least there's that.
Okay, so that takes care of the family. The other speaking roles for women are the rude receptionist, the woman who would be Fred's boss at the video game company if he got a job there (nice woman, so, naturally white and blonde), and a neutral waitress at a diner (not totally rude, not totally nice--white, brunette).
But mainly, this is a boy's own adventure. It's a movie about guys. It is, I dare say, a bromance. Between a human and a CGI bunny. They're both presented as straight, but at one point when Fred tries to get rid of E.B., E.B. actually says, "Do you want to see other bunnies, because I'm open minded."
And now, the plot weirdness! The bizarreness of this movie is not limited to general race/class/gender stuff. If you couldn't tell that before, you'll soon see.
So yeah, for the first half of the movie, Fred's trying to get rid of the bunny, but then something clicks and he realizes he wants to be the Easter Bunny, and then the second half of the movie is all about him trying to make that happen. At first E.B. is not really on board with this plan. Even though he doesn't want the job, he doesn't want anyone else to have it either. But, eventually, after Fred stays up all night coloring eggs (what!?), E.B. decides he's actually okay, and that he needs to help Fred train to become the Easter Bunny. This means, of course, that we get a training montage.
If you are thinking this sounds utterly surreal, you're not wrong. To make it weirder, back on Easter Island, Carlos is hatching (oh god, sorry about that pun) his own Easter Bunny takeover plan, so we get juxtaposed training montages. Fred hurdles over a series of hedges while carrying an Easter basket in each hand. Carlos runs on a candy conveyor belt. Fred hurdles over hedges while carrying two Easter baskets in each hand. Carlos bench presses a double headed lollipop with Easter baskets dangling from either side. Fred hurdles over hedges while carrying three Easter baskets in each hand... Kayleigh said this was her favorite part of the movie. I have to say it totally made us both laugh. The hedge hurdling was pretty epic. All the Carlos parts were played for laughs because he's lazy and fat. Yawn. But seriously, Hedge hurdling. With Easter baskets. Um, anyway.
Somewhere in all this E.B. drums for David Hasselhoff and wins his ticket to stardom. Moments before the Hoff's Hummer limo comes to pick him up, E.B. realizes the Pink Berets have found the mansion where he and Fred have been squatting, so he puts his shirt on a butterball turkey and stages a Fatal Attraction style boiled bunny surprise for them to find. Naturally, the Pink Berets don't bother to check the pot for any evidence other than E.B.'s shirt. No. That would show competence. They just assume the turkey is E.B. after the barest of glances, sedate Fred, and haul him to Easter Island to stand trial for bunny murder.
But! On Easter Island, Carlos has locked all the supervisor bunnies away, and tied Bertie Woosterbunny up. When the Pink Berets arrive he chocolatizes them with some of the factory equipment and steals the scepter of Easter! Oh NOES!!!1! Bertie Woosterbunny says that only a bunny can wield this powerful artifact, but Carlos doesn't listen. Remember that thing about divine right? Well, Bertie WOosterbunny isn't kidding. The scepter of Easter demands a bunny wielder, and, Internets, the stars are right for this fluffy adventure to take a turn for the Lovecraftian. Power ... changes you. If you're Carlos, it changes you into a terrifying chick!bunny hybrid. I am so not joking. The special Easter moon hits the amber egg at the top of the scepter of Easter, and Carlos sprouts fuzzy yellow chick!bunny ears, and a fuzzy yellow chick!bunny tail, and then his tiny orange beak grows two square bunny chompers. What the? I don't even know.
Luckily, Fred's a real good eater, so he saves the day by chewing through his black licorice bonds and then untying Bertie Woosterbunny. Meanwhile, E.B., who has a change of heart at the last minute, rushes back to Easter Island and stops Carlos from taking the special egg sleigh... by drumming. Yes.
Bertie Woosterbunny feels bad about expecting his son to do his job, so he apologizes, but E.B. says no, it's cool, he'll be the Easter Bunny. He's just going to be a drummer all during the rest of the year. Oh, and he's going to share his position with Fred. Cool? Cool. So it is that the world is made safe for democracy Imperialism. Carlos has to stay a chick!bunny, but he's relegated to ordinary drudgery with no special managerial status. And! Fred gets to tell his family he finally has a job. Fred's family doesn't believe him until E.B. shows up with the egg sleigh and then they're all super amazingly impressed, and Dad says, "The Easter Bunny! The one who makes it all happen!" Because of course this is the obvious reaction to have when one finds out one's slacker son now has a job delivering chocolate and eggs for one night every year. Amirite?
And they all lived happily ever after.
Which is to say, OMFG, this movie was so freaking weird. I have to admit it did make me laugh, though. A lot of times it was horrified laughter, but sometimes the jokes actually worked. Also, credit where credit is due: I had no trouble believing that James Marsden was actually hanging out with a CGI bunny, and not just talking to empty space. Kayleigh says she recommends it to anyone who probably would have seen it anyway. I think that's about right.
James Marsden hurdling hedges with Easter baskets in Hop
Right, onto the deconstruction!
First, Hop does not pass the Bechdel Test. There are more than two women (I count... 6 with speaking roles), but they don't really talk to each other. If they ever do (I don't remember this happening even though there are a few scenes with three female relatives in the same room), then it's about Fred (James Marsden, AKA Cyclops from X-Men), the male protagonist. But the weird gender fail is bigger than that. peacockharpy mentioned that the only female bunnies are strangely mute ninjas called the Pink Berets. I didn't quite get how bizarre that would be until I saw it, but I think before we get to that, we've got to set up the class and race issues.
So, okay. The fictional Easter Island of Hop, is basically a colonial outpost. The head of everything is an esteemed British Gentleman Bunny voiced by Hugh Laurie. Yes, Bertie Wooster is the Easter Bunny. And let me tell you, it's really weird to hear Bertie Wooster crush a young bunny's dreams and tell him to behave like a proper grown up gentleman bunny. It's like Bertie has turned into Aunt Agatha. Except as a plump CGI bunny in tails... But I digress. I was talking about colonialism.
So you've got a British boss bunny, and his snotty privileged British son and heir (voiced by Russell Brand, who is apparently a British comedian of some renown, though he was previously unknown to me), and they rule over a giant underground factory, where extravagantly Easter themed machines churn out acres and acres of candy. And these machines? Are run by chick laborers. Chicks as in baby chickens, not as in girls. There are supervisor bunnies, some of whom ride Segways, but all the laborers are chicks. Okay, oppressed race. Yeah, normal colonial setup. But it's weirder when you start to notice the bizarre status markers. Like, for instance, the only clothed bunnies are E.B. and his father. All the supervisors are naked, and so are all the chicks. Then there's the Latino leader of the chick laborers, who is twice the size of the other chicks. His name is Carlos (voiced by Hank Azaria), and he's a Large Angry Man Chick.
Which is when it gets even weirder. Because apparently in Hop world it's totally possible for chicks to be their own separate race unrelated to chickens. In fact, all the chicks in Hop? Are men. Yes. I could not make this up.
Carlos is pissed off because, hey, guess what? He has to spend his entire life in toil and drudgery for a condescending British bunny, who apparently only works one night a year. Because of FATE. Destiny. Magic. Dare we say Divine Right? I think we do, but more on that later.
Early on, before E.B. has gotten into sullen adolescence, he tours the factory with the childish enthusiasm and adoration of an entitled boy who admires his dad.
"Someday all this will be yours," Bertie Woosterbunny says, gesturing to the giant waterfall of jelly beans (which, considering that we later learn jelly beans are Easter Bunny poo, is kind of disturbing).
To my great disappointment, E.B. does not say, "What, the curtains?" Instead he seems excited by the mere presence of So. Much. Candy. Which, I can totally understand, honestly. As a kid, this would have been my dream come true. In any case, E.B. is so excited that he can't resist sampling the goods. Carlos sees this and tells him to stop, because the candy is for Easter baskets, not the denizens of Easter Island.
"He was taste-testing," Bertie says.
Carlos knows his place, so he gets all obsequious and plays along with Bertie, who suggests that the Marshmallow Chicks (not Peeps--for some reason this movie didn't seem to have product placement, which was also weird) have too much Marsh and not enough Mallow, but he can't resist a parting shot at the snotty kid. "Goodbye! Enjoy your life of privilege!"
This was, I think one of the funniest lines in the movie. Alas, it was undermined by the utter failure to recognize Carlos's anger as legit and the system as broken. Because this whole movie exists to uphold the colonial imperialist ideal. Which leads me to my next unfortunate observation: all people of color in Hop are villainous and/or deeply unpleasant (except for the blind musicians, who get a pass because they're blind and, um, magical negroes. Yay?).
So: POC roll call!
*Fred's adopted!sister, who is maybe 10? She's bratty and spiteful ("Sometimes I think you adopted me because Fred was so disappointing."), but at least apparently an accomplished kid. Well, at first glance anyway. She has the lead in her school play. "They usually assign the part of Peter Cottontail to a boy, but they made an exception on account of my singing voice is so strong," she says. But... on the night of the play we learn that she is actually tone deaf. We have basically no idea why she got this role. The whole scene exists for E.B. to get onstage with Fred and steal the show, relieving everyone in the audience whose ears might have started bleeding were it not for their spontaneous cover of Bow Wow Wow's "I Want Candy". The sister is pissed at Fred over this, but really, we're meant to sympathize with him more than her.
*The receptionist at the video game company where Fred's sister (the good, white, blonde one) manages to wangle an interview for her wayward brother. Fred arrives half an hour late for his interview, and the receptionist, instead of politely taking his name and telling him to wait, snaps at him. Fred says he did call and the receptionist glares at him and says, "That doesn't make you any less late." Then Fred scolds her for it, saying that she is the first impression people have of this company, and maybe she should think about that. Really, we should sympathize with her because Fred's an entitled slacker jerk, but the movie signals for us to be on his side.
*The blind musicians at the video game company, who are recording tracks for the blues version of Rock Band (here called Rock Master, because see above about no product placement). E.B. sneaks in and lays down some drum tracks, and they like him so they give him a flyer for David Hasselhoff's talent search. And they magically know that he is a bunny for some reason. Why? I have no idea.
*Carlos--the ONLY Latino chick on Easter Island. WTF squared. Carlos is belligerent, fat, lazy, deceitful, and power hungry. He organizes (bullies) the other chick laborers into staging a coup d'etat ("Which is French for... coup d'etat."), and steals the special scepter of Easter, which grants magical powers to the Easter Bunny. More about that in a bit, because wow is that bit Weird with a capital W.
And. That's it. Everyone else is white.
Right, so having set up the race and class dynamics, now we can get back to the gender weirdness.
On Easter Island, there are no women. Bertie Woosterbunny may well have reproduced by budding, because E.B. certainly doesn't seem to have a mother. But then, wait! There's the Easter Bunny's royal guard. They're women! Yes! These three (3) female bunnies do not speak, and they are only ever called on in extreme emergency. Maybe they are monks? I just don't know. But they're women. We know this because they are smaller and cuter than male bunnies, and they wear pink berets. They occasionally emit high pitched squeaks, but they never say words. They have high tech spy equipment like pink iphones, which they use to gather photographic evidence of where E.B. has run off to without ever actually catching him.
Because, yes, the big emergency is that the entitled bunny boy has run away from home, shirking his title for a life of itinerant drumming celebrity. And oh noes! how will the Easter Baskets get delivered if E.B. doesn't do it? Carlos wants the job, but that is, of course, laughable. A chick cannot deliver Easter! Only a bunny can do that! The really ironic thing is that at one point when Fred is arguing with E.B. about whether or not a human can be the Easter Bunny (spoiler: he can!), he says, "You're a bunny who delivers eggs! Shouldn't you be the Easter Chicken?" But of course, as we have seen, chicks are not really chickens in this universe anyway.
So. To sum up the Women of Easter Island: There are three, they're all mute, and despite being supposedly badass ninjas, they're easily outwitted by a slacker teenage boy bunny. To make matters worse, when they might actually save the day, in the big end battle, instead they get encased in chocolate by malevolent Carlos. I do love badass females who ... um ... do nothing of consequence. Oh yeah.
Oh, and just to make things weirder, whenever the Pink Berets appear, there's a special rap song that plays, explaining who they are. It is, naturally, performed by a man.
Anyway, let's visit the Hollywood section of Hop world, shall we? Perhaps gender politics is better there?
Well, in some ways, yes. I mean, there are at least more women who exist in Hollywood--all 6 of the women with speaking roles are there! Fred O'Hare is the only son in a family of five. We've already talked about adopted!sister. Fred's good (white, blonde) sister is a successful career woman, as yet unmarried. His mother is... mostly there to nag him. Dad is aggressive and wants his son to be a real go getter. He wants all his children to be this way, actually. In the school play scene, he heckles another father whose kid has the part of an egg. "An egg? Oh, that's nice. My kid is the Easter Bunny. Yeah. The one who makes it all happen." Foreshadowing! Of course as we've already seen, this turns out to be false since Fred and E.B. end up the stars of the show. Double foreshadowing!
Anyway, okay, so good!sister is good because... can you guess why, Internets? Did you say because she always supports Fred and is nice to him and exists only to try to help him? Yes! You're right! Oh, sure, sometimes she gets annoyed with him, but only in that, "Oh, that Fred!" sort of way. He's a slacker who won't get a job and apparently doesn't care about anyone but himself, but good!sister understands that really he's a good guy who needs her help. She gives him the key to her boss's mansion, gets him a job interview, and constantly provides emotional support. Even though we hear that she has just been promoted at work, we never actually get to know what she does, or really anything about her that doesn't directly relate to Fred and E.B. Oh, and she gets to be objectified too, because E.B. has the hots for her, and in one exceedingly creepy moment, plays with her hair while she hugs him close, assuming he's a very special plush toy ("He's so adorable! And lifelike! And ... warm..."). Fred finds this whole thing disturbing, too, so at least there's that.
Okay, so that takes care of the family. The other speaking roles for women are the rude receptionist, the woman who would be Fred's boss at the video game company if he got a job there (nice woman, so, naturally white and blonde), and a neutral waitress at a diner (not totally rude, not totally nice--white, brunette).
But mainly, this is a boy's own adventure. It's a movie about guys. It is, I dare say, a bromance. Between a human and a CGI bunny. They're both presented as straight, but at one point when Fred tries to get rid of E.B., E.B. actually says, "Do you want to see other bunnies, because I'm open minded."
And now, the plot weirdness! The bizarreness of this movie is not limited to general race/class/gender stuff. If you couldn't tell that before, you'll soon see.
So yeah, for the first half of the movie, Fred's trying to get rid of the bunny, but then something clicks and he realizes he wants to be the Easter Bunny, and then the second half of the movie is all about him trying to make that happen. At first E.B. is not really on board with this plan. Even though he doesn't want the job, he doesn't want anyone else to have it either. But, eventually, after Fred stays up all night coloring eggs (what!?), E.B. decides he's actually okay, and that he needs to help Fred train to become the Easter Bunny. This means, of course, that we get a training montage.
If you are thinking this sounds utterly surreal, you're not wrong. To make it weirder, back on Easter Island, Carlos is hatching (oh god, sorry about that pun) his own Easter Bunny takeover plan, so we get juxtaposed training montages. Fred hurdles over a series of hedges while carrying an Easter basket in each hand. Carlos runs on a candy conveyor belt. Fred hurdles over hedges while carrying two Easter baskets in each hand. Carlos bench presses a double headed lollipop with Easter baskets dangling from either side. Fred hurdles over hedges while carrying three Easter baskets in each hand... Kayleigh said this was her favorite part of the movie. I have to say it totally made us both laugh. The hedge hurdling was pretty epic. All the Carlos parts were played for laughs because he's lazy and fat. Yawn. But seriously, Hedge hurdling. With Easter baskets. Um, anyway.
Somewhere in all this E.B. drums for David Hasselhoff and wins his ticket to stardom. Moments before the Hoff's Hummer limo comes to pick him up, E.B. realizes the Pink Berets have found the mansion where he and Fred have been squatting, so he puts his shirt on a butterball turkey and stages a Fatal Attraction style boiled bunny surprise for them to find. Naturally, the Pink Berets don't bother to check the pot for any evidence other than E.B.'s shirt. No. That would show competence. They just assume the turkey is E.B. after the barest of glances, sedate Fred, and haul him to Easter Island to stand trial for bunny murder.
But! On Easter Island, Carlos has locked all the supervisor bunnies away, and tied Bertie Woosterbunny up. When the Pink Berets arrive he chocolatizes them with some of the factory equipment and steals the scepter of Easter! Oh NOES!!!1! Bertie Woosterbunny says that only a bunny can wield this powerful artifact, but Carlos doesn't listen. Remember that thing about divine right? Well, Bertie WOosterbunny isn't kidding. The scepter of Easter demands a bunny wielder, and, Internets, the stars are right for this fluffy adventure to take a turn for the Lovecraftian. Power ... changes you. If you're Carlos, it changes you into a terrifying chick!bunny hybrid. I am so not joking. The special Easter moon hits the amber egg at the top of the scepter of Easter, and Carlos sprouts fuzzy yellow chick!bunny ears, and a fuzzy yellow chick!bunny tail, and then his tiny orange beak grows two square bunny chompers. What the? I don't even know.
Luckily, Fred's a real good eater, so he saves the day by chewing through his black licorice bonds and then untying Bertie Woosterbunny. Meanwhile, E.B., who has a change of heart at the last minute, rushes back to Easter Island and stops Carlos from taking the special egg sleigh... by drumming. Yes.
Bertie Woosterbunny feels bad about expecting his son to do his job, so he apologizes, but E.B. says no, it's cool, he'll be the Easter Bunny. He's just going to be a drummer all during the rest of the year. Oh, and he's going to share his position with Fred. Cool? Cool. So it is that the world is made safe for democracy Imperialism. Carlos has to stay a chick!bunny, but he's relegated to ordinary drudgery with no special managerial status. And! Fred gets to tell his family he finally has a job. Fred's family doesn't believe him until E.B. shows up with the egg sleigh and then they're all super amazingly impressed, and Dad says, "The Easter Bunny! The one who makes it all happen!" Because of course this is the obvious reaction to have when one finds out one's slacker son now has a job delivering chocolate and eggs for one night every year. Amirite?
And they all lived happily ever after.
Which is to say, OMFG, this movie was so freaking weird. I have to admit it did make me laugh, though. A lot of times it was horrified laughter, but sometimes the jokes actually worked. Also, credit where credit is due: I had no trouble believing that James Marsden was actually hanging out with a CGI bunny, and not just talking to empty space. Kayleigh says she recommends it to anyone who probably would have seen it anyway. I think that's about right.
James Marsden hurdling hedges with Easter baskets in Hop