From a horror icon to an iconic story which is brought to us in animated version with a beautiful song penned by the legend that is Mike Batt and performed by Art Garfunkel, the rest of the soundtrack was by Angela Morley and Malcolm Williamson. The music is not the best thing about this movie although it is good, credit must go to Martin Rosen who wrote the screenplay as well producing and directing it. It had a list of names who gave their voices to this movie including the legend that is John Hurt, Richard Briers, Michael Graham Cox, Simon Cadell, Harry Andrews and not forgetting Zero Mostel in one of his final roles. I have had some difficulties in getting the figures for this movie so don’t quote me but rumour has it that it was produced on a budget of $2.4m and a real rough stab in the dark the rumoured return was around the $20m mark or a bit more. This movie is very well liked as IMDb gave it similar to me with a 7.6/10. Rotten Tomatoes gave it even more with a creditable 82% and for those eagle eyed among you would of noticed a 6 point difference meaning it will make an entry onto the Tri-Critic Sync Challenge coming in at joint 7th with a 6% split joining the recently reviewed Red, Calendar Girls and The Amazing Spiderman but we still have the closest movie being 4 points of difference with three movies sharing that honour at the moment. Will we ever break that 4% mark? OK onto the plot.
The film follows a group of rabbits who have been living happily in a Warren near Sandleford. One seer rabbit named Fiver has an apocalyptic vision of the future with all rabbits dead in the warren all crushed to death. He convinces Hazel to form a group and plan an escape when the head rabbits refuse to believe him. So Fiver, Hazel, Bigwig, Blackberry, Pipkin, Dandelion, Silver and Violet. They manage to escape the Owsla (Rabbit Police) and run into a future. Soon after Violet is killed by a hawk when they are in open land. Leaving the group exclusively made up of males with no way to breed and grow in size. Fiver keeps his reputation by warning of a bloody incident and they come across a farm where they have doe rabbits that they try to break out to join them which brings a whole host of issues for the group. They then encounter another warren led by General Woundwort - a horrible, totalitarian state where you follow the rules or the Owlsa will deal with you in unprecedented ways of violence and aggression. They infiltrate this warren to organise a break out of more females to join there group in pursuit of this mythical land where they can feel safe and grow their group in a safe warren.
OK I may of shared too much of the plot and I have tried deliberately missed out bits of the story in an attempt to avoid spoilers. To me this is a classic movie and a story that has survived the passage of time. It is an animated movie which is not really for children although that has confused people down the ages. As I remember watching this way too young and expecting a happy go lucky story which this isn’t. It is a story of a group of oppressed individuals forced out of their home just to stay alive. Then journey across treacherous lands full of dangers and threats of death in the need to find a new home. Refugees of bulldozers and housing developments it is a desperate story of hope with death and violence throughout. This is not a kids movie although it maybe dressed up that way but it is a recommended story whether via this version or better still the book!
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