Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

There's been some confusion over the years about whether or not Richard Adams' original novel and this animated adaptation are suitable for young children. I'm firmly in the "no" camp, even though schools, libraries and recently the UK's Channel Five have been marketing it that way. Adams' novel is really a story about combat soldiers, creatively transposed onto the natural history of rabbits, and though Adams claims he originally wrote it for his own kids, your approach to parenting (and your children's level of tolerance for depictions of loveable animals in constant terror for their lives and being maimed and killed in numerous sudden, violent ways) is likely to be diferent.Obviously there are people who think that any story about animals is suitable for kids, even if it depicts the suffering or death of animals because suffering and death are a part of life and kids need to learn about it sometime. I would reply that this is true, but it's also cruel to expose children to movies that have a well-established track record of giving them nightmares, as this film does. Anyway you'd be giving them a distorted view of the lives of animals, which are NOT all about fear, suffering and death. Rabbits spend most of their lives eating (including their own poop). They also do routine work (they have to dig those burrows after all), play, mate and have babies--a lot of them. You don't see this in "Watership Down," because as I say it's a fable about war, not a natural history lesson. Another point: females are nearly invisible in the story, so not only is half of the life cycle of rabbits cut out, it's not even a proper depiction of war, which despite the conventions of war stories that Adams was drawing on, has always involved women combatants, whether in the regular army or not.

I watched this out of curiousity after hearing all the controversy about it being shown on channel five during the day. I forced myself to watch is all the way through even though it was boring, so boring I struggled to follow it and ended up having to read the exact plot online. The voice actors sound like boring old men. Everything about it feels so 70s, and not good 70s but the miserable 70s feeling of hopelessness, boredom, dated animation, a feeling that all TV being aimed at boring old men. The only positive thing about this is the bittersweet music video of bright eyes. But it'll make you cry.

Afraid to stay in his warren after having a horrific vision, an outspoken rabbit convinces his friends to join him on a journey to a new home, an undertaking that proves dangerous, in this animated movie from Martin Rosen. A few years later, Rosen would go on to direct 'The Plague Dogs', an even more nightmarish animation that makes 'Watership Down' seem like a stroll in the park, but this earlier effort has a lot of interest on its own terms. A particularly striking aspect of the film is the beautiful watercolour backdrop animation that collides harshly with the very graphic foreground imagery. And with lots of violent attacks and copious blood (especially during the haunting vision), this is certainly not a film for little kids. The whole movie is quite unsettling -- in the best possible way -- and borderline frightening as the rabbits venture into the unknown where everything seems stacked against them - something that causes them to contemplate briefly whether they did the right thing to leave their warren. The film lacks the deeply fleshed out animal characters of 'The Plague Dogs' with most of the rabbit characters feeling interchangeable, but as mentioned, this is a fairly effective film if one avoids comparing and contrasting. Certainly, it is hard to think of another movie, animated or otherwise, that captures so acutely the uncertainty of leaving one's home.

What if rabbits had myths and beliefs of their own? That's pretty much the only change this film makes to the existing world, but it's enough to open up a whole new realm of possibilities. The rabbits of this film are ordinary rabbits. They come out near dusk, eat carefully, are ever alert and are as a whole a nervous bunch. But this film, based on a classic novel of the same name by Richard Adams, sets out to explain this behaviour by giving the rabbits the ability to tell stories to one another, including creation myths. Tales about the sun god Frith and the first rabbit, The Prince with a Thousand Enemies, El-ahrairah.And you know what? That's really interesting. The whole film pulls you in instantly and you come to care about the lives of these ordinary rabbits, which you normally wouldn't pay any attention to. But the film makes them identifiable and shows their struggles as they constantly clash against the world of men and against their own kind. For they have the same capacity for cruelty, power-madness and insanity as we have. It's not a tale for small children or the easily disturbed, that's for sure, but I admire its ambition and willingness to explore some pretty heavy and dark themes.The film is also animated well, especially keeping in mind the relatively small budget. Pretty much the only complaint I have animation-wise is that it's sometimes a bit tough to tell the rabbits apart from one another. Some are easily distinguished, but the majority of them look very alike. But, as a whole, it's very impressive-looking.Watership Down is a rare jewel. An animated film you can only really appreciate as an adult, for it is a dark tale with themes of power, dictatorship, the ability to hope and the willingness to endure. Definitely not a film you should show to your kids, no matter how cute the rabbits look on the cover.