'Hop' takes Easter Bunny through cute but troubled terrain

Kids will love “Hop.”

It's cute.

It's funny.

It's clever. In fits and starts.

But I'm guessing the creators of “Hop” are completely oblivious to the stereotyping of their characters, the blatant anti-union message of their story, and the superficial, unearned emotions of its fast and forced finale.

Still, none of that should take away the credit due James Marsden. He really shows his acting chops in “Hop,” a live-action/animation comedy about two characters with arrested adolescence on a quest to find their places in the world.

In every one of his scenes, Marsden gives 150 percent. His tirelessly over-the-top performance carries this film through some pretty shaky moments.

He creates a cartoon character of his own in Fred O'Hare (foreshadowing alert!) a twentysomething man still living with his family members desperate to push him out of the nest.

Dad and Mom (Rolling Meadows High School alum Gary Cole and Elizabeth Perkins) want him to get a job, but Fred just can't commit to maturity.

On Easter Island, the Easter Bunny (voiced by Hugh Laurie with his real British accent) has trouble convincing his teen offspring E.B. (voiced by Russell Brand) to take his rightful place as the head rabbit for Easter two weeks away.

E.B. wants to be a drummer in a band, not in charge of delivering all the Easter baskets around the world, even with an army of yellow chicks operating the elaborate candy-making factory that would make Willy Wonka woozy with envy.

Just before he's to take over for Dad, E.B. jumps into a magic portal and pops up in Hollywood, where Fred, driving his parents' car, nearly turns the bunny into roadkill.

It takes a while for Fred to accept a talking rabbit, outside of the one hawking cereal. The two slackers become pals.

Fred's efforts to secure employment get thwarted by his rabbit sidekick. Meanwhile, the Easter Bunny has dispatched the Pink Beret — three ninja rabbits — to locate E.B. and return him to Easter Island to fulfill his destiny.

“Hop,” directed by Tim “Alvin and the Chipmunks” Hill, offers plenty of crowd-pleasing scenes, especially one in which Fred's sister Sam (Kaley Cuoco) falls for cute E.B., pretending to be a stuffed animal. (E.T. should sue.)

Some animated scenes from Illumination Entertainment are jaw-dropping amazing, especially the opening sequence showing the Easter Bunny's candy factory.

But wait!

Didn't anybody notice that Hank Azaria's chick supervisor Carlos is a combination of Che Guevara and Cesar Chavez, out to rally the workforce of little chicks (symbolizing children laborers?) against the oppressive, aristocratic Easter Bunny with an imperialistic British accent?

“Sure,” the underappreciated and dissed Carlos grumbles as the insensitive boss bunny passes by, “go back to your life of privilege!”

Of course, the little chick rebellion gets crushed, and Carlos, the Hispanic leader of the effort to unionize, becomes the story's villain out to dethrone the Easter Bunny.

As for the Christian implications of Easter, celebrated as the resurrection of Jesus Christ, forget about those.

The Easter Bunny notes his ancestors have been distributing Easter baskets for 4,000 years, and that clearly predates Christ by two millennia.

This movie may be highly entertaining for its target audience, but I can't help but imagine that its thoughtless subtext should make more than a few thinking viewers hopping mad.

<b>"Hop</b>

<b>Two stars</b>

<b>Starring:</b> James Marsden, Russell Brand, Hank Azaria, Gary Cole, Kaley Cuoco, David Hasselhoff, Hugh Laurie, Elizabeth Perkins

<b>Directed by:</b> Tim Hill

<b>Other:</b> A Universal Pictures release. Rated PG. 94 minutes