You might be thinking that these movies are for children and hence further might be wondering why I have watched them and/or writing a review about them. What I think is that these movies aren't only for children and, independent of this, I think that adults (or parents) should also watch kids movies. I can assure you that I am old enough---it is a fact that I grew up with the original Looney Tunes series (which I will probably come back to in a later post). So I indeed watched the Peter Rabbit movies as an adult, not as a kid.
Some can even argue that these two movies aren't for children. More specifically, they aren't good for children, so children shouldn't watch them. Apparently, there were some parents who boycotted the first Peter Rabbit movie because of something said in the movie regarding allergies, which brings me to my second point about why parents should watch kids movies. I am not a parent yet but I'd like to watch kids stuff to evaluate them. Although I must admit if the age level decreases enough it becomes unbearably boring, I find some of them fun too. After all, everybody still has a kid version of themselves inside them somewhere, right? (hopefully). And we have got to feed this kid so that they don't die.
Anyhow, I am a person with a lot of allergies and I wasn't offended by the allergy "joke" in the movie. Perhaps the other parents are right about boycotting it but I wouldn't have a problem with my children watching this movie. It teaches lots of good things. e.g. how the land was the animals' before we came. Although I agree with this, it doesn't stop me from being upset if I find a bug in my apartment---technically it was their land first and we came and built a building, oh well.
My favourite part of the movie was the rooster scenes. Such a good depiction of the excitement of roosters for the morning: "The sun came up again!?!? I can't believe it! I thought I closed my eyes last night that that was it! But we have another day of this? Wahaaa". All these years...we have wondered what roosters were talking about at the dawn like that or what was there to be so excited about. Apparently, it was this. I mean, it makes perfect sense. It also made me think that maybe it is a non-dangerous idea to be happy if the sun comes up. Although, in this case, the rooster thinks it came up because he cock-a-doodle-dood, but it's fine.
Another rooster scene: "No way! The sun came up again!? If I knew this was going to keep happening, certainly wouldn't have fertilized all those eggs. Now, I have to stick around till they hatch and be present and involved." Okay, so I think this is a more serious point that parents should be concerned about (if they really wanted to boycott the movie for a reason). I thought this was funny because I am an adult. I don't think it is a nice thing to say though, certainly wouldn't want any child to hear this from their parents. In any case, I like that they included these things for adults to enjoy.
Another nice thing in the movie was the rabbits apologizing by touching foreheads. It just looks like a genuine apology when you do it that way. Touching foreheads inevitably makes you physically close to the person you are apologizing to, it establishes a connection. I am sure some release of hormones is involved when you do that. When I was younger, my aunt told me that hugging enhances your relationship with a person, or maybe she said something similar to that. She also mentioned that it releases certain hormones so that you become a happier person in general (this is actually supported by science). But her point was that I should hug her. On the other hand, the 12th doctor on Doctor Who says "Never trust a hug, it's just a way to hide your face." So, yeah, I am all confused now. Thankfully, we are in the midst of a pandemic so there isn't much opportunity to hug anyone so I don't have to make a decision about this right now.
Domhnall Gleeson plays one of the live action characters in the movie. I know him from the contemporary Star Wars movies (episodes 7-9). I had liked his performance as General Hux very much. His facial expressions were full of angst as Hux and in fact he makes the same faces a bit in this movie too. Since I remembered him from the Star Wars movies and his scenes in those movies are mostly on their battleship, I was delighted by it when there was a mention of his eye colour, in the Peter Rabbit movie, being green with a touch of battleship grey. Interesting fact, he was also in Harry Potter series as Bill Weasley. I definitely did not remember him from the Harry Potter movies.
When it comes to voice actors who voiced the rabbits, I will start by someone from Star Wars again: Daisy Ridley. She voiced one of the rabbits in the first movie but did not do it in the second movie---how rude. The main character rabbit (Peter) was voiced by James Corden. I know James Corden from Doctor who series. He had adventures with the 11th and the 12th doctors. Even though he was only in a couple of episodes somehow it felt like he was there all along. As it turns out, he also has his own talk show, which I didn't know about until very very recently. He has this voice tone which makes you think he is familiar to you, I think that's what made me feel comfortable having him in the Doctor Who episodes. Consequently, it was nice to have him voice Peter Rabbit, too. Margot Robbie voiced one of Peter's sisters who also happens to be the narrator of the movie. I think it was a great voice performance.
About Peter Rabbit: The Runaway, the second Peter Rabbit movie: The voice actors were mostly the same. As I mentioned above, Daisy Ridley did not reprise her role which caused a lot of confusion for me because I had assumed it was her and when I heard some of the weird noises her character did in this movie I was wondering how Daisy Ridley were making those noises. Thankfully, it turned out it was someone else.
In the second movie, the most striking point of the movie (to me) was: if you tell your child that they are bad, they will become bad. I am familiar with the idea that if the parents tell the child that they are behaving bad, they will start behaving bad even if they weren't in the first place. If you keep saying something like this repeatedly, they will just own it. That's what happened to Peter Rabbit in this movie. So I think there is a really good warning for the parents, in this movie.
Along with Peter's runaway in this movie due to being labeled as scapegoat all the time, there was another main story going on with one of the live action characters, namely Bae. We see Bae writing a storybook about these rabbits in the first movie. In the second movie, the book is published and the sales are going very well. So then a big company makes an offer to her to write more books. But they want to have a say in what she is going to write. She doesn't understand how much she was being played at first but at the end of the movie, she realizes it and quits. Yet again, a lesson for adults given in this movie. I mean, being an author or having academic freedom, belongs to adult world problems.
Finally, I think one has to consider that these movies are based on a real children's story book from early 1900s, while watching/reviewing/criticizing these movies. I think it is understandable if ideas like big companies kill the genuineness (or any other topic/idea that we would call "classical" in our era) are being treated. Well, to be honest, some things haven't changes since then either, so maybe it is important to bring them up again in movies. However, I do find it boring when such classical ideas being called up again. So I wasn't interested in what's going on with Bae's book---I guess I also somehow knew that she was going to 'learn her lesson' because that's always what happens in movies.
I give 7/10 for Peter Rabbit.
I give 6/10 for Peter Rabbit 2.
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