In fairness,the team at the Australian digital studio Animal Logic are clearly more committed to their task,labouring to perfect the texture of Peter's fur or his blue jacket (now denim to reflect his newfound hip attitude). All the same,in design terms Peter and his friends are unsatisfactory creations,neither full-blown cartoons nor photorealistic enough to belong to the same universe as the humans they spy on from a distance. The fact that the action occurs on two different physical scales creates a visual problem Gluck has little interest in solving – as George Miller did triumphantly with actual animals in hisBabe movies.

Set in a storybook version of the present day,the film portrays Peter as a cocky self-appointed leader – in other words,the average cheeky animal protagonist,with little to distinguish him from Alvin in theAlvin and the Chipmunksfilms or Surly the Squirrel in the recentNut Job 2. Like Surly,he makes a game of stealing food,his favourite target being Mr McGregor's vegetable garden.

When Mr McGregor dies from a heart attack,Peter and his fellow rabbits rejoice (Potter might,at least,have appreciated the lack of sentimentality here). But their shortlived triumph ends with the arrival of a younger member of the McGregor clan,a tightly-wound former Harrods employee (Domhnall Gleeson,channelling Richard E. Grant) with a grudge against the countryside and its"vermin".

Also living nearby is Bea (Rose Byrne),an artist apparently meant to represent Potter herself,who sketches the local wildlife for fun while putting most of her energy into hideous abstract paintings. She adores rabbits as much as the new Mr McGregor hates them – which leads to the sparring you'd expect in a romantic comedy like Gluck'sFriends With Benefits,in all probability the kind of film he'd prefer to be making.