Here Comes Peter Cottontail

When it comes to judging things meant for a much younger audience, you need to go in with a degree of lowered standards. This isn’t to say that a bad film is allowed to get away with being poorly made if it’s meant for a younger audience, but usually when it comes to projects that are exclusively designed to appeal to toddlers or pre-school children, they can be forgiven for not creating the most exceptional material as long as they work for the target audience and offer what is required of them. the 2005 Computer-animated Peter Cottontail film doesn’t stand out as a spectacular kid’s film and if anything, it’s hard to even label it as anything worth watching, but for a straight to DVD film clearly made for younger kids, there’s a lot worse stuff out there. Peter Cottontail (voiced by Tom Kenny) must look after Spring town and the season of Easter as well as try to pass on his wisdom to his son, Junior (also voiced by Tom Kenny) whose more occupied in inventing less than brilliant machines to improve Easter than being like his father. While in charge of the season clock, he’s tricked by two enemies of his father, Irontail (voiced by Roger Moore) and Jackie Frost (voiced by Molly Shannon) into losing the spring of spring, halting time, and removing spring from the world. They plan to stop all the seasons until only winter remains. Junior works his way through the different lands with a cowardly bird named Flutter (voice by Kenan Thompson) and a mouse obsessed with food called Munch (voiced by Miranda Cosgrove) to stop the bad guys and bring seasons back to the world. Based on the 1957 novel The Easter Bunny That Overslept by Priscilla and Otto Friedrich, though at times the film is cheaply made, the plot is rushed, and it has a few scenes that really date the film in a bad way, Here Comes Peter Cottontail has a simplicity to it that can appeal to those of the appropriate age and has enough colorful locations and inventive ideas that makes it a serviceable bit of entertainment for children to witness

Acting as a supposed sequel to the 1971 Rankin/Bass stop-motion tv special, nothing about this film needs ”past viewing” in order to check it out as no one is liking going into this hoping to be surprised by its narrative. With that in mind, the plot is a fun concept, and it leads to a lot of fun creations and locations. It’s a basic travel film with all the expected beats that would come from this, if anything the film is packed with a decent chunk of old cliches that aren’t used in a very interesting manner, but for what it’s doing and who it’s for, it could be done a lot worse. Though the idea of different lands representing a holiday or season is nothing new, the addition of the clock powering the worlds and each one having a part that represents the season they inhabit.  like the power source of spring is literally a spring, summer is a gear shaped like a sun, stuff like that gives the world a somewhat absurdist fairy-tale vibe that will nothing new or that out-of-the-box for what its showcasing, is appreciated nonetheless and feeds into the whimsical vibe the film is obviously going for. The film isn’t very long and for the most part is decently paced, never staying in one place for too long so it never gets boring to look at. Something is always moving forward, so the energy is always up but it does know when to slow down and not be so in-your-face, it knows when to let a scene sit. The film does suffer from rushed storytelling, quickly passing over plot elements and cutting scenes short that needed more time to develop. Although the pace of the film isn’t too bad, some plot lines seem to get sidelined and forgotten very easily. In a movie like this where the plot really doesn’t matter, the plot’s narrative structure isn’t too much of an issue because it seems to be more concerned with things like the visuals and the villains, but either way, it could’ve been handled better

The characters are also very basic and easy to understand very quickly, which makes sense as some if not all of them came from a children’s storybook written by Thornton Burgess. Their set-ups are very recognizable and the direction that they go through in the film, though never discussed, or developed, gives exactly what’s expected. The main character is passable, the bird and the mouse are enjoyable and have quick to grasp storylines, the side characters are standard, but very non-intrusive. The villains are enjoyable to watch and are the only ones that really stand out against the passable but still more cliched characters from a film of this type; the best thing about having two villains with opposing personalities bounce off each other’s that it leads to some fun comedy, and both have their own attractions for the audience to enjoy. The voice acting is surprisingly pretty good from everyone. Tom Kenny, though a weird choice for a such a young character and never really comes across like one, does a good enough job, especially because he must play three roles in the film, and does a decent job differentiating them, Kenan Thompson gets a few little chuckles probably just because he’s just a naturally funny actor who could turn any standard line a little better, Miranda Cosgrove is almost unrecognizable in the role, Roger Moore gives a lot of dignity and surprising weight to the villain role, and Molly Shannon does good working off of him with her more out-going aggressive personality. Characters can save a standard story, and the characters are clearly likeable enough to watch and keep the kids invested for the film’s running time.

The animation clearly does better at showing off the colors than it does the models and layouts. The characters models look doll-like and move just as robotically, without even taking into consideration how ugly they look. They never look alive, and the gigantic eyes mixed with their tiny mouths means that almost no variety can come from any of their looks or expression. Ignoring Jackie Frost whose face can be a little too animated at times to a disturbing degree, there’s no expression or movement in most of the cast’s faces at all, it just comes across as either a budget thing or their designs were so bad that they didn’t even factor in the idea of facial expressions. Despite the models, the colors in the movie are very nice and the various worlds have their own unique lighting that capture the feeling of the season. The warm gold and orange of autumn and the cooler purples and blues in winter gives the locations some great eye candy, even if it is a little PBS like in quality and tone. Though the locations don’t look like anything special, the atmosphere that each exudes gives them their own style and it does feel like a story-book environment in that regard. The film unfortunately has a few moments that remind the kids when it was made to an annoying degree. If there’s any period of time that constantly makes things worse when it’s pointless included in media, it’s the 2000s period and you can feel it here as well. Stuff like the rock song at the end, pop songs throughout, and Junior wearing a jacket are little details that are stupid but are not as bad as other films for the time. For a film with these kind of characters and animation, it is perfectly timeless in many ways (if anything, it couldn’t and shouldn’t try to be modern in any way to begin with) and these add-ons just feel like a desperate plug for something current to be in the film.

For a straight to DVD film, the film has more effort put into it than it really deserves, especially for something that looks preschool levels of simple. For a basic fairy tale style story, it captures a magical feel with some fun creative concepts, colorful locations, standard but likeable characters, entertaining villains and a quick to understand story. Though it does look cheap and isn’t the most focused engaging narrative, it understands who it’s trying to appeal too and at least keeps the film entertaining and likeable. Besides some of the colors and some of the interactions from the bad guys, nothing about the film can appeal to the adults, but for kids it’s a perfectly average film that can give them a colorful fun adventure. An okay film for kids, nothing much for anyone else, it’s a fine Easter treat that kids can look forward too.