Today is certainly one of those days as we approach the subject of one of the films that pretty much moulded my childhood. A beloved film that has stayed with me for years, fueling and furthering not only my love for cartoons but would help plant seeds for my love of the film noir/detective genre.
Long time readers of this blog may be relieved that it also marks the actual return to reverse alphabetized normality although ultimately may be dismayed as this is a great film and I may not be as animated in my review as I was for "Cable Hogue" or "X2" for example.
We have reached that point where it is time to rewatch and review:
WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT (1988 dir. Robert Zemeckis)
I don't even have anything clever to say about the cover, other than there were better movie posters for this film and it's the German cover because the Amazon UK image was blurry as hell.
Why I bought it/Why I liked it:
Grab a cushion, old man Major's going to reminisce here.
Back when I was a child, if one of the main channels needed to fill a space to fill up the time between programmes, they would put on a cartoon. Ranging between 5 to 15 minutes for the space of either 1 to 3 cartoons, the BBC or ITV would actually list it simply as "Cartoon Time". BBC would often plum for either a Looney Tunes, Tex Avery, Tom & Jerry or Paramount era Popeye and ITV would usually show a classic Disney short ranging from Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck or if we got really lucky, Goofy.
I mention this because sadly this isn't a thing anymore. The major channels in the UK now fill in this dead air by either putting on a party political broadcast, a charity pledge or just advertising for future programming in the week or even later in the evening. It sucks. It deprives this generation of getting to watch and ultimately fall in love with these cartoons as I did as a child. In fact, I have no idea how you even get a chance to watch these cartoons anymore. Are they still on 'Boomerang'? Digital media is sadly the only way I know how to watch them and you have to know about them beforehand.
But I fell in love with Looney Tunes, Tex Avery, Goofy, Tom & Jerry so much that I now have extensive box sets containing them. I own all six Looney Tunes Golden Collections. I can still put these on and they will have my rolling in laughter, that's how good these were.
At the same time, I was a child just as "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" had come out. UK merchandise was swamped and it was everywhere at the time, much like "Batman" would be the year after. As a result when it finally hit terrestrial TV, "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" was a staple of fixtures for years to come. It also was a guaranteed way for my parents not to have to worry about me for at least two hours.
To this day, it's the magical unity of Disney cartoons, Warner Bros cartoons and Tex Avery Cartoons as well as some Kings' Feature characters like Betty Boop. For a child who loved cartoons, this was the holy grail, a gorgeous visual feast filled with all my favourite characters with a plotline within to boot.
And what a plot-line, I LOVED Bob Hoskins' Eddie Valiant in this film. He was the everyman private detective, playing straight man to wacky Roger Rabbit but you felt for him. How he became bitter after the death of his brother but how he begrudgingly helps Roger.
And you have Christopher Lloyd's Judge Doom. An actor I absolutely love yet a role that scared the FUCK out of me as a child and whose big reveal at the end would give me nightmares and still puts the shit up me to this day.
For a lot of kids, this would be their first taste of the film noir genre and honestly, I fell in hard too, loving the dynamic and aesthetic of it and I would often really pay attention to subsequent examples of this down the line.
And of course, it'd be the first time a bunch of boys would fall in love with a cartoon. Sadly in my case, this wasn't the last time...
If I think it'll stay in the collection:
Geez, after that testimonial, you think it won't? It's a perennial favourite and I can see it staying there for some time until I finally get off my ass and upgrade it to Blu-Ray, maybe even getting that anniversary edition finally.
The review:
Wow. Just wow.
I haven't actually sat down and watched it in some time but upon watching it, it whisked me back to being that little kid who used to watch this film over and over like 20 times.
Just the joy of watching live-action acting combine with animation is a joy to watch. Zemeckis films the live-action parts with all the glorious tropes I've come to love in the film noir genre, from Eddie Valiant's dependence on the bottle to shadows being cast through slatted blinds. It pays homage to classic Warner Brothers movies of the time.
I knew when I saw that first glimpse of Dumbo peeking through the window of Maroon Studios that I was hooked in for the duration of the film. It also occurs to me, this must have been a big influence for the creation of Kingdom Hearts right?
Hoskins nails the hard-boiled attitude of Valiant yet delivers emotion with just a few movements of his face, proving what a wonderful actor he was and why his mainstream career was cut so tragically short thanks to the bomb that was "Super Mario Brothers". Christopher Lloyd plays arguably his most chilling role, a fair cry considering he was still filming for Zemeckis as the lovable Doc Brown around this time too.
The fact that he doesn't blink just makes the role that much scarier and when the big reveal kicks in, hoo boy. I'm a big boy now at the age of 35 but memories of young Matt cowering in fear as Judge Doom's reveal kicks into play still rattles around in my head.
There...you can have nightmares now too.
A special mention should also go to Joanna Cassidy, who plays Dolores, who provides the perfect foil for Eddie Valiant as the love interest that hates to see Eddie destroy himself. That beautiful swelling Alan Silvestri score that actually got me choked up upon hearing it again. Finally, the animators and voice artists who made the magical moments of the toons combining to come true. Watch the 'Toontown' sequences again and just try to clock all the easter eggs in one go.
Should it stay or should it go?
I'd be hard-pressed to think of another instance when 100 minutes fly by as quickly. Still, a joy to watch today as the first time I watched it. It garners the perfect 10 out 10 score, as if you didn't all see this coming.
Next time we dip into another boxset temporarily in what could technically be called a Brucie Bonus but is in effect just me trying not to make the same mistakes I did with the Peckinpah boxset.
Until next time, I remain,
Matt Major
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