Watership Down (PG)
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This 1978 film is based on the 1972 novel of the same name. I'm not sure if I ever saw it as a kid, but if I did I would have been too young to remember it or to have understood it at the time. I'm watching it in 2025, perhaps for the first time, on Easter, because bunnies. But there's really nothing at all Easter-ish about the movie. (I was planning on watching it on Easter 2024, but my executive dysfunction stopped me.) I'm afraid I only kind of liked the movie, whereas I kind of loved the book. I feel like I might have liked the movie a bit more if I hadn't read the book before seeing it, but on the other hand, I feel like it might have made a bit less sense to me if I hadn't read the book. And if I'd watched the movie first, I might have decided not to read the book, which would have been a shame. The movie hits all the major plot points of the book, as far as I can recall, but it sort of rushes through everything. There's nothing in depth about any of the plot points, compared to the book. It's not a bad movie, though. And I'm sorry I couldn't manage to enjoy it more than I did.

It begins with some rabbit mythology, about the god Frith, who created all the worlds in the universe, and all the animals. The rabbit prince, El-Ahrairah, angered Frith, so Frith turned some animals into predators who would hunt and kill rabbits. But eventually Frith gave rabbits speed and cunning.

The main part of the movie is about a warren of rabbits including Hazel (voiced by John Hurt) and his brother Fiver, who intuited a coming disaster, though he didn't know the nature of it. (I was under the impression that they were just friends in the book, but I might have been mistaken.) So Hazel and Fiver tried to get the chief rabbit of their warren to agree that everyone should leave the warren and find someplace new to live. But the chief thinks they're crazy, so Hazel and Fiver lead a small group of rabbits who decide to join them. They're pursued by members of their warren's Owsla (police), but manage to get away when one member of the Owsla, Bigwig, joins them.

Well, the rabbits have a number of harrowing adventures as they search for a new home. Eventually Captain Holly of their old Owsla finds them and informs them that Fiver was right, and all the rabbits in their warren had been killed by men. He himself had barely escaped, and had briefly joined a large warren called Efrafa, which was a rather dystopian society whose own Owsla had badly hurt him when he left, as no rabbits are allowed to ever leave Efrafa. Anyway, the rabbits eventually find a new home (Watership Down, though it's not called that in the movie). And they befriend a seagull named Kehaar (Zero Mostel). And eventually Bigwig goes to Efrafa to try and liberate the rabbits there. But the chief rabbit, Woundwort, and his Owsla, hunt them down, and there's a bloody battle. (The movie might be too traumatizing for young children.)

I'm leaving out a number of important plot points, but I don't really want to reveal any more of the story, especially not how it ends. It's a decent enough story, but if you're only going to partake of one incarnation, I recommend the book. I just couldn't get as invested in the story or characters in the movie as I did in the book. (There is, however, a 2018 CGI miniseries I'd like to check out sometime.)