
PETER RABBIT 2 Champions Forgiveness and Family
By Movieguide® Staff
The sequel to the 2018 family adventure PETER RABBIT logged a $10 million opening weekend, higher than initially projected.
PETER RABBIT 2: THE RUNAWAY brought back familiar faces and voices like James Corden (Peter Rabbit), Domhnall Gleeson (Mr. Thomas McGregor), and Rose Byrne (Bea).
In a recent interview with Fox News, Corden noted that PETER RABBIT 2 champions the importance of family and forgiveness.
“If you have the love and support, and forgiveness, we so rarely talk about in society, with the love and forgiveness and support of family and friends you can find your way out of that mistake and become a better person,” Corden said.
“I think it’s a really important message for the children to hear. I think it’s arguably a more important message for us adults to hear,” he told Fox News while promoting the film.
“The great thing about this film is that it really teaches children that we are going to make mistakes. There [will be] some slip-ups coming your way and the mistake isn’t the thing. It’s who you are after that mistake. Who you going to be after that mistake and what are you going to learn from it?” he said.
Movieguide® named PETER RABBIT one of 2018’s Best Movies for Families.
Christian actor and producer David Oyelowo joined the cast in the new movie.
Oyelowo plays Nigel Basil-Jones. This was the actor’s first time portraying a CGI character, and he had to quickly adapt to the difference between a live-action performance and voice acting.
“My secret to it was looking out of my periphery as to whether Domhnall and Rose were happy with what I was doing because they had done it in an entire movie themselves,” Oyelowo said.
Oyelowo recently made his directorial debut with THE WATER MAN, and said he did PETER RABBIT 2: THE RUNAWAY because his daughter insisted on it.
“In all of my work, I want to address the issue of faith without being prerogatory. You know, without sort of making it what the entire story is about. But it’s such a huge part of my own life that there is not a piece of work I do that doesn’t sort of touch on that in some way,” Oyelowo told Movieguide®.
A portion of Movieguide®’s review reads:
In the first PETER RABBIT movie in 2018, Peter learns to do the right thing instead of causing trouble. In PETER RABBIT 2: THE RUNAWAY, Peter becomes upset when other people, including a new friend, think he’s the same mischievous troublemaker he used to be. The new friend, an elderly rabbit from the city named Barnabas, is the leader of a gang of animals who steal food from humans to survive. Barnabas entices Peter to bring his family and friends to help the gang heist barrels of dried fruit and veggies from the city’s farmers market.
PETER RABBIT 2 is magical, funny, exciting, and suspenseful, with seamless computer graphics. Although there’s stealing, Peter is like a new Christian who lets the world define who he is by who he used to be instead of who he has become. Besides its Christian, redemptive allegory, PETER RABBIT 2 extols family, friendship, forgiveness, and doing the right thing. However, it also has lots of slapstick violence, some possible Romantic elements and a female pastor in a wedding scene. So, MOVIEGUIDE® advises caution for younger children.