In Review: Watership Down Part 2

Synopsis: The Escape and The Siege: It soon becomes clear that General Woundwort will not part with his captives without a fight.

Review: This second part of the BBC’s new Watership Down adaptation is a lot stronger and pacier than the opening episodes.

The Story

With Hazel injured and alone. Clover, who he rescued from the farm decides to go after him alone and is captured by General Woundwort’s rabbits. Bigwig having been close behind Clover manages to get Hazel back to Watership Down where a daring rescue plan is formed, which relies heavily on Bigwig being able to fool Woundwort’s soldiers into thinking that he is an independent rabbit.

The Acting

The acting continued to be really strong in this second two hours and Ben Kingsley got much more to do in this episode as the cruel and ruthless General.

Gemma Arterton also got to establish her character of Clover who is brave, nieve and hopeful, which are traits that the does imprisoned by Woundwort are not particularly impressed with, but she does get her chance to prove them wrong with a little help from Bigwig and the other rabbits.

Overall

This second part was really strong and with most the relationships now established you found yourself really rallying behind the Rabbits of Watership Down. The first part, which involved Bigwig and a few others rescuing Clover and all the does from Woundwart was a lot of fun to watch and I loved how Clover got to use the art of misinformation to try and facilitate the escape.

The second part saw Woundwart and his soldiers retaliate only to be outwitted by a plan of Fivers devising, which proves really dangerious for all concerned.

Overall. I really enjoyed this and will most likely check out the book at some point given that it was one that I never got around to reading when I was a kid.