{"id":9441,"date":"2024-11-30T12:16:32","date_gmt":"2024-11-30T17:16:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=9441"},"modified":"2024-11-30T12:16:32","modified_gmt":"2024-11-30T17:16:32","slug":"peter-rabbit-2-the-runaway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/11\/30\/peter-rabbit-2-the-runaway\/","title":{"rendered":"Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway<\/strong> (2021)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Columbia\/Comedy-Adventure\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 93 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG (some rude humor and action)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Will Gluck\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Will Gluck and Patrick Burleigh\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Dominic Lewis\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Peter Menzies Jr.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0Release date: June 11, 2021 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Rose Byrne, Domhnall Gleeson, David Oyelowo, James Corden, Colin Moody, Margot Robbie, Elizabeth Debicki, Aimee Horne, Lennie James, Hayley Atwell, Damon Herriman, Rupert Degas, Sia, Sam Neill, Ewen Leslie, David Wenham. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Box Office: $40.5M (US)\/$154M (World)<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: **<\/p>\n

\u00a0The good news is Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway<\/strong> is no worse than the first one. The bad news is it\u2019s no better either. This, of course, is from the perspective of an adult. Kids who loved the first Peter Rabbit will beg to differ. They\u2019ll be tickled pink by the continuing adventures of the bad bunny and his mixed family (animals and humans). They sure were laughing it up at the Saturday afternoon showing I attended. I was the only one there without a kid or kids. I\u2019m sure I got some funny stares from parents and I don\u2019t blame them. What grown person in their right mind sees a movie like Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway<\/strong> on their own? Believe me, I questioned my own state of mind more than once as I forfeited 93 minutes of my life, 115 if you count previews.<\/p>\n

\u00a0If you saw the first Peter Rabbit movie three years ago, you know it doesn\u2019t exactly follow the original stories as conceived by Beatrix Potter. The gentle tale of mischievous Peter was turned into a crass, rude, sometimes cruel comedy marked by painful physical comedy and general obnoxiousness on its title character\u2019s part. Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway<\/strong> is more of the same except for Peter setting his sights higher than Mr. McGregor\u2019s garden. He and some new companions plan to heist a farmer\u2019s market for all its dried fruit.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Once again, Peter (voiced by talk show host Corden) is at odds with Thomas McGregor (Gleeson, Star Wars: The Force Awakens) over his behavior. Recently married to the rabbits\u2019 caretaker Bea (Byrne, X-Men: First Class), McGregor always seems to catch Peter at his worst. It doesn\u2019t help that Bea\u2019s best-selling book about his leporid family portrays him as the naughty one. It only gets worse when a major publisher shows interest in her work. Nigel Basil-Jones (Oyelowo, Selma) wants to publish her books worldwide. Of course, she\u2019ll have to make some changes first. In an all too familiar scenario, he wants to turn her sweet, gentle stories into something more commercial. One of his ideas is sending the rabbits into outer space.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Nigel\u2019s marketing plan involves portraying Peter as a \u201cbad seed\u201d, a notion that so offends the naughty little bunny, he decides to live up to his literary reputation in real life. While walking through town alone, he meets Barnabas (James, The Walking Dead), an older rabbit who knew his father way back when. He introduces Peter to his crew- mouse Samuel Whiskers (Degas) and feline siblings Tom Kitten (Herriman, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood) and Mittens (Atwell, Agent Peggy Carter in the MCU)- and a life of crime. In turn, Peter gets his brood- sisters Flopsy (Robbie, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood), Mopsy (Debicki, Tenet), Cottontail (Horne) and cousin Benjamin (Moody)- involved in the heist along with several friends from the farm. It ends in betrayal and Peter having to set things right again.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I\u2019ll give director Will Gluck (Easy A) credit for keeping Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway<\/strong> hopping throughout. It\u2019s a lively, colorful affair with good CGI that seamlessly blends with the live-action actors and beautiful English locations. Its other good point is Byrne whose natural grace and beauty is a nice counterpoint to the idiocy displayed by the other human characters. In Gleeson\u2019s defense, he seems to be a good sport about playing second carrot to a computer-animated rabbit. The best thing about Oyelowo\u2019s performance is his character\u2019s very British name. With a name like that, he could be the newest member of Spinal Tap if he played an instrument.<\/p>\n

\u00a0At the same time, Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway<\/strong> feels like it\u2019s trying too hard to recreate the whimsy and zaniness of its predecessor while simultaneously taking it to the next level with new characters, higher stakes and the whole dried fruit heist thing. In other words, it\u2019s business as usual for a sequel. Let\u2019s call Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway<\/strong> what it is, a cash-grab movie designed to stimulate the little ones in the same way as Cottontail when she discovers jellybeans. Adults will cringe at jokes like Mopsy changing her name to \u201cLavatory\u201d to be different from twin sister Flopsy. The humor is aimed directly at the lower grade school crowd which makes perfect sense since no kid past the third grade would be caught dead at a movie like this.<\/p>\n

\u00a0What else can I say about Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway<\/strong> other than it contains the usual lessons about family loyalty, the pitfalls of naughty behavior and not selling out? That last one leads to the movie\u2019s only funny line; one of the rabbits remarks that Bea\u2019s books will probably be adapted into \u201ca sassy hipfest for commercial gain, probably by an American.\u201d Truer words have never been spoken. I promise you the real Beatrix Potter is spinning in her grave again with this entirely unnecessary but inevitable sequel. Heed my advice, if you don\u2019t have kids, DON\u2019T BOTHER! If you do, steel yourself for 93 minutes of forced smiling.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway (2021)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Columbia\/Comedy-Adventure\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 93 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG (some rude humor and action)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Will Gluck\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Will Gluck and Patrick Burleigh\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Dominic Lewis\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Peter Menzies Jr.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0Release date: June 11, 2021 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Rose Byrne, Domhnall Gleeson, David Oyelowo, James Corden, Colin Moody, Margot Robbie, Elizabeth Debicki, Aimee […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9652,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-animation"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/Peter-Rabbit-2-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9441","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9441"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9441\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9654,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9441\/revisions\/9654"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9652"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}