It’s dangerous to ponder out loud sometimes. Your questions can come back to haunt you in weird ways…

After being forced to endure relentless and uninspired marketing “synergy” for Hop during NBC’s Thursday night line-up of comedies, I knew I wanted to do a comic about Universal’s holiday-themed cinematic offering.

That’s when I remembered this comic of mine from 2008, where I questioned why there weren’t any Easter-themed movies (aside from the obvious Biblical ones, of course). There seemed to be an opportunity for a secular family movie in this realm. Why hadn’t it happened before.

As and you shall receive, I guess. Considering it takes about three or four years to produce a computer-animated film, I’m kind of weirded-out by the coincidence.

The fact that the movie is produced by the team that brought us last year’s Despicable Me gives me a scintilla of hope. Based on the trailers, I was convinced that Despicable Me was a complete waste of time. But I was wonderfully surprised when I finally sat down to watch the film.

Hop suffers from a similar problem. There is literally nothing about the plot that I can tell you except that baby chicks apparently want to take over Easter and that the lead character poops jelly beans. In fact, considering the film comes out on April Fool’s Day, I’m still not completely convinced we aren’t all being punk’d.

Any time a movie’s marketing campaign leads with the scatological, you know right away you’re in deep doo-doo.

What I find weird is how they roped James Marsden into it? Was Marsden perhaps annoyed that Jason Lee snagged the lead in Alvin and The Chipmunks and figured this was the next best thing? This, combined with Marsden’s voice work on Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore last year really has me worried about a lead actor that is otherwise very winning. All this kiddie flick stuff makes me think he has a niece somewhere that he’s trying to impress.

At least Russell Brand has some culpability from this thing. Although why you’d want a former heroin addict like Russell Brand to voice the lead character in your family movie is a decision only Hollywood could make. I guess giving the Easter Bunny a vaguely sneering English accent makes him more exotic? Not sure what the logic is behind that one.

I’m giving Hop a hard time and probably unjustly so. I actually hope that the movie is more than the sum of its parts because we’re actually considering taking Henry to it this weekend. I don’t know if it’s because I’m desperate to some movie – ANY movie – that I’m willing to line up for this abuse or if it’s I’m morbidly curious, or both. But if we end up going, I’ll let you know how it turns out.

In the meantime, if you want my thoughts on some more traditional family entertainment, be sure to swing by the Bonus Materials blog. I posted a review of Bambi: Diamond Edition on Blu-ray over the weekend that people have been very complimentary of. I was surprised how much I enjoyed the film considering that the only thing I remember of it is the cutesy stuff. If you haven’t seen Bambi in a while, read my review and see if you don’t fit into that category as well.

Be sure to leave comments about this comic as well. Is anyone else anticipating Hop this weekend? Do you think we’ll see more secular Easter holiday offerings at the movie theater in the future? Do my pre-cognitive abilities suggest a potential career in solving murders? Let us know in the comments below!
In the m