Believe it or not, there was a point in time when Disney and Warner Bros. teamed up in order to make a ground-breaking movie where they existed together, and were simply known as "toons". They lived their lives working in 1940s LA, acting in theatrical cartoon shorts, and living in their own segregated city known as "Toon Town." There, one could find Mickey Mouse AND Bugs Bunny, and nowadays, this movie acts a wonderful little time capsule for those of us who remember a time when it wasn't about which studio held the better superhero franchise. To give a little education for some new-comers, this was released under Disney's offshoot, Touchstone Pictures - a studio Disney could use to release some of their more leaning-towards-adult material. I'd say that nowadays, the comparison might be Star, which one can find through Disney+. Either way, when I saw this as a kid, there was quite a bit that went over my head that I'd come back to as an adult and have a good, somewhat shocked laugh at. This was the same effect that 'Ghostbusters' had on me, and that gives 'Roger Rabbit' here a serious boost in my love for it as well. Despite its lovable cast of childhood cartoon characters, one can also find hilarious jokes in here about mistaking the words "prostate" and "probate," adult lines from the cigar smoking Baby Herman (Lou Hirsch) like "I got a fifty year old lust and a three year old dinky," and plenty more that might come as a surprise for a first-time viewer. It's interesting to think of this as a movie that doesn't seem to know who its for, yet somehow or another, this movie really worked out quite well, including being selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant." More than anything, that came from the skills at that time of combining animation with live-action, which had been done plenty of times before, but never to such a scale. One could compare it to 'Toy Story' and the use of full CG animation. It was a bit of a first, having actors communicate with a bunch of tennis balls on sticks, and putting animation over that which used no computers - a process everyone born after the year 2000 should check out to appreciate how difficult and time-consuming things used to be with animation. Plot-wise, our story follows detective, Eddie Valiant (Bob Hoskins) who once worked with his brother on several famous cases in Toon Town, until his brother, Teddy, was killed by a murderous Toon one day by having a piano dropped on his head. After that, Eddie stopped working with Toons, lost his sense of humour and fell into alcoholism. Meanwhile, head of Maroon Cartoons, R.K. Maroon (Alan Tilvern) is struggling with one of his biggest stars, Roger Rabbit (Charles Fleischer), turning in poor performances. Sensing a broken heart, Maroon hires Eddie to spy on Roger's wife, Jessica (Kathleen Turner), to catch her in the act of cheating. Eddie is led to the "Ink and Paint Club", and catches Jessica in the act of playing Patty Cake (which I guess is supposed to be sexual for Toons) with Marvin Acme (Stubby Kaye), who owns both the Acme company as well as Toon Town, and is generally beloved by toons. Returning to Roger with the bad news, Roger doesn't take it too well, but is suddenly found suspect #1 when Acme is found murdered the next day. This makes Roger seek out Eddie's help even further in clearing his name. Hesitant at first, Eddie takes Roger's case, as it's the right thing to do. The whole time, Eddie attempts to solve the real crime with the help of his sweetheart, Dolores (Joanna Cassidy) while he hides Roger from a group of mobster weasels known as the "Toon Patrol" (David Lander, Charles Fleischer, June Foray and Fred Newman) and their boss, Judge Doom (Christopher Lloyd) who destroy criminal toons by using terpentine, acetone and bensine; a combination known as "The Dip" (or, essentially, paint thinner). While there may be elements to this movie that haven't aged particularly well, I'd still suggest this one has its place in the cinematic history books for various reasons, namely the balance of real-world and cartoon characters. But it was also a point in time when Disney and Warner Bros. worked together, and it breathed new interest in the golden age of animation. As a kid at the time, being familiar with all of these character and getting able to see them all coexist was almost akin to seeing 'The Avengers'. Bearing in mind that it was 1988, nothing like it really existed, and it was a pretty big deal.
'Roger Rabbit' is a pretty interesting time capsule of a movie, and if you haven't seen it since your childhood, I'd highly recommend a re-watch. I can't really see it being a huge hit for the younger generation, but I do think there's still a ton to appreciate here no matter who you are. The adult jokes are great, and are a friendly reminder of what PG used to get away with. Beyond that, one has to appreciate the effort put into making the film at the time, and its timelessness considering it taking place in the 40s. It's a solid detective noir storyline, punctuated with humour and more cartoon characters from the golden years than one could shake a stick at.
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When this was initially released, I was very quick to jump the gun on claiming it as my "favourite film of all time". I eventually buckled the hell down and put real thought into what that movie should be and landed on 'Ghostbusters' for all the reasons explained in that review. But getting back to this, I can honestly say that over the years, this never really dwindled in my high praise for it. It's enough to say that if I presented a 24-hour marathon of my favourite films of all time, ranked, this would absolutely make the list as one of the first I'd think of. I have very fond memories of catching this one in theatres, seeing it three separate times because after the first go 'round, I had to introduce it to everyone. Most enjoyed it for what it was, if not on an equal level as I did. But some were understandably confused by what was going on, and I can even remember some pretty harsh commentary in the theatre with how the film ends (one of my favourite endings to a film as well). I always took great pride in the fact that it was a confusing film that I seemed to be able to follow with little effort. But I can't necessarily brag either, since much of his other work confuses the hell out of me. The thing to note before I get into this, however, is that the film is full of personal bias towards it. I love Leo as an actor, it reintroduced be to Joseph Gordon Levitt who turned out to be just as solid, I had a bit of a thing for Ellen (Elliot) Page at the time, the subject matter had to do with dreams which I've always been very interested in, and yes of course I fell into the group of many who were blown away by the special effects that were largely practical. The film looked riveting from the get-go and there was no need for CG or 3D to make it look like it would be an awesome time... And an awesome time it was! The film introduces us to the concept of "extractors", who use a new technology which allows them to plug into the dreams of others where they perform acts of espionage to gather information hidden deep within a person's subconscious for some generous payment. Said extractors are Dom Cobb (DiCaprio) and Arthur Freeman (Gordon-Levitt), opening the film, on the job in the dreamworld of their latest target, Mr. Saito (Ken Watanabe). Despite the excitement, however, it ends up being a test by Saito to make sure their good enough for a much more difficult job. After Saito learns of Cobb's ability to "layer dreams" in order to reach the subconscious, thus complicating the dreamscape, he figures him right for the job he has in mind; performing "inception" which means implanting an idea in someone's mind but having that person believe it to be their own idea. The target is the son of Saito's soon-to-pass-away competitor, Maurice Fischer (Pete Postlethwaite), Robert (Cillian Murphy), with the intention for Robert to dissolve his father's company rather than take it over. In exchange, Saito would scrape Cobb's criminal status, which would allow him to return home to his family. With that offer, Cobb assembles a "Dream Team" (sorry) consisting of a "forger" (who specializes in in-dream impersonations) named Eames (Tom Hardy), a chemist who can concoct the right dream-sharing serum for this mission's purposes named Yusuf (Dileep Rao), and a college student named Ariadne (Elliot Page, credited as Ellen) who's responsible for being the dream architect by basically designing the environments of the dreams. There's a whole big unfolding of the team's plans as to how they're gonna do what they're gonna do, and I admit that it does get pretty complex. However, I would say that while trying to follow along just keep in mind that all the team's mission boils down to is getting deep into the subconscious mind of Robert Fischer through layered dreams in order to implant an idea that he will think he has himself upon waking up. The conflict comes from the subjects subconscious projections of people who will attack dream invaders like the "extractors", and getting shot or kills basically just means waking up, but at the cost of blowing the mission, so "no big deal" turns to "all the marbles" real quick. Putting even more risk on the line are projections of Cobb's now deceased wife, Mallorie (Marion Cotillard) who makes an effort to stop the team. How does a projection do this? It boils down to Dom's guilt in losing her after introducing her to shared dreaming. This is where Cobb's totem comes in, in the form of a top he can spin. If it falls over, he's not dreaming. If it keeps spinning, the dream is still going. Without the totem, things can get confusing and someone may try to defy physics while assuming it's still a dream resulting in their death (which is what happened to Mallorie).
I'm not entirely sure if I made things easier or harder to follow with my breakdown here, but sometimes I have a hard time putting so much into trying to keep it simple. There really is quite a bit going on here. But the fact of the matter remains that I still love this movie and hold it in high regard. I don't know if I can recommend it to just anyone and everyone like I once used to. But what I can say is that it remains a personal favourite since its release, and this is JUST me, but I'd consider it Christopher Nolan's best work. Chances are that most movie-goers would primarily recognize actor John Boyega from the latest three 'Star Wars' instalments as Finn. Before he fell into that, however, he headed a British sci-fi horror comedy that seemingly went over a lot of heads, 'Attack the Block.' Now, he's most recognizable for playing a 'Star Wars' side character more than he's known for this role - a role badass enough that I wish the MCU had chosen him to play the new Blade rather than Mahershala Ali, who's still good, but I see Blade more in Boyega because of this. The film opens with an innocent lady named Sam (Jodie Whittaker) heading home to her flat, only to be accosted by a handful of punk teenagers, going by the names of Pest (Alex Esmail), Jerome (Leeon Jones), Dennis (Franz Drameh), Biggz (Simon Howard) and their leader, Moses (Boyega). The mugging is ultimately successful, but if we don't see these kids as little monsters already, things are soon interrupted by a crash-landed alien creature, which the group chases down and kills without knowing a thing about it. Lie it or not, these guys end up being who we're supposed to route for. Once the kids have this alien creature in their possession, they head up to Ron's (Nick Frost) flat in hopes to keep in his weed room. Here's where we also meet the gangster Hi-Hatz (Jumayn Hunter) who basically runs the block selling drugs, and sees potential in Moses. Whatever this was going to lead to, however, is quickly interrupted by more aliens falling from the sky, and more of the kids' desire to get out there and kill those things. However, what's falling now isn't quite as easy to take on as the first one, and soon these guys find themselves in the midst of a localized alien invasion. As the night wears on, and these kids aim to survive it, more and more unfolds about these characters (namely Moses) that lead us to understand why they have to do what they do. The film does a great job of making these guys out to be little bastards in the beginning, as we so quickly relate to Sam's vulnerability. But it even manages to get to the point where the strategy of their mugging is explained, and while these kids aren't exactly good, we do understand them to be just as vulnerable human beings, if not more, considering their respective living situations. This is one of the finest examples of character development that can be crammed into an hour and a half when it comes to this gang, but it also gives us some entertaining side characters who do a decent job of playing the audience; namely Sam and a dude named Brewis (Luke Treadaway) who just sort of goes through this movie with things happening around him. But I've also gotta give credit to the young kids in this, Mayhem (Michael Ajao) and Probs (Sammy Williams), who are just a couple of kids trying to make a name for themselves amid Moses' gang and add a whole level of child-like comedy to the mix. All-around likable characters aside, let's take a moment to talk about the look of these invading aliens. I breathed a breath of fresh air when I first laid eyes on these things as they were aliens, unlike anything I can remember seeing in anything else. They were roughly mid-large dog-sized, pitch black in colour, almost as if its fur was made entirely of shadow, and their teeth glowed a bluish-green in the dark. They're a bit reminsicent of Geiger's uber-famous Alien mixed with a gorilla mixed with a bear. Further to their design, I appreciated that for once, other than Geiger's uber-famous alien, we had a species here that existed entirely within the alien animal kingdom instead of being some kind of intelligent alien species bent on enslaving the human race, abduction or even communicating with us in a way shape or form. The reason the come to Earth and localize themselves to this neighbourhood is eventually explained, but It'd be a huge spoiler if I talked about it in much more detail. Once you discover their reason for being there, though, it gives the film a big sense of rewatchability, much like 'Fight Club' or 'The Sixth Sense'. The only real problem I can see with this movie is that some may not make it very far past the language, which consists heavily of Enlish, inner city slang. There's a lot of "innit" and "fam" and "brov", and I'm not ashamed to say I had a tough time with it the frst few times around. But the language is heavily outweighed by the film's atmosphere, action scenes, soundtrack, stunts, humour, gore, and the simple idea of taking what could be compared to 'The Goonies' and making it more adult five years before 'Stranger Things' did it.
This is one of my favourite films of all time based on everything I've mentioned about it and more. It's full of clever ideas and humourous call-backs to various situations, and it'll keep you on the edge of your seat while still being quick and to the point and having you laugh along the way. This is a film that defines "thrill ride" when it comes to watching something fun, and the more times I go on the ride, the better it gets. If you're looking for a solid hour and a half of unique laughs, thrills, music and chills, look no further! |