Director: Robert Zemeckis
Writers: Gary K. Wolf, Jeffrey Price, Peter S. Seaman, Ted Osborne, Ali Taliaferro
Photography: Dean Cundey
Music: Alan Silvestri
Editor: Arthur Schmidt
Cast: Bob Hoskins, Charles Fleischer, Kathleen Turner, Stubby Kaye, Christopher Lloyd, Joanna Cassidy, Amy Irving, Lou Hirsch, Mel Blanc, June Foray
Who Framed Roger Rabbit deserves a fair amount of credit along with Studio Ghibli for launching this golden age of animated feature movies in which we now live. No point going into the doldrums that animation suffered from the 1960s on, when cost-cutting and merchandising to the death was the name of the game. Whatever anyone thinks of its entertainment value now—my take is that it holds up remarkably well—Roger Rabbit came along and shook things up, making the case an animated or mixed live action picture could do bank and win Oscars. In the name of nostalgia as much as anything it loaded up with vintage greats, from Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny to Donald and Daffy Duck, along with Betty Boop, Yosemite Sam, Droopy Dog, Woody Woodpecker, and many others. They're all part of the extravaganza—for once, money was no object in making an animated picture.
I am also struck by how it works an idea that Frank Miller and Alan Moore were playing with over in the comic book world at about the same time: what if, in the 1930s and 1940s, superheroes were real—what would they be like? Just so, Roger Rabbit imagines a world where a "toon" is a life form with specific properties living in the world with us. Because of what cartoons are and can do, the result is infinitely more surreal than anything anyone got to in the comic books with superheroes. Roger Rabbit can be surprisingly disturbing right down on the profound levels, like the best surrealism, particularly Toontown proper, a neighborhood in Los Angeles. It doesn't hurt, of course, that executive producer Steven Spielberg was on board this project with his production company, which in turn brought in one of Spielberg's most gifted proteges to direct, Robert Zemeckis, a special effects aficionado with a knack for making his movies work like finely tuned clocks (Romancing the Stone, Back to the Future).
Who Framed Roger Rabbit deserves a fair amount of credit along with Studio Ghibli for launching this golden age of animated feature movies in which we now live. No point going into the doldrums that animation suffered from the 1960s on, when cost-cutting and merchandising to the death was the name of the game. Whatever anyone thinks of its entertainment value now—my take is that it holds up remarkably well—Roger Rabbit came along and shook things up, making the case an animated or mixed live action picture could do bank and win Oscars. In the name of nostalgia as much as anything it loaded up with vintage greats, from Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny to Donald and Daffy Duck, along with Betty Boop, Yosemite Sam, Droopy Dog, Woody Woodpecker, and many others. They're all part of the extravaganza—for once, money was no object in making an animated picture.
I am also struck by how it works an idea that Frank Miller and Alan Moore were playing with over in the comic book world at about the same time: what if, in the 1930s and 1940s, superheroes were real—what would they be like? Just so, Roger Rabbit imagines a world where a "toon" is a life form with specific properties living in the world with us. Because of what cartoons are and can do, the result is infinitely more surreal than anything anyone got to in the comic books with superheroes. Roger Rabbit can be surprisingly disturbing right down on the profound levels, like the best surrealism, particularly Toontown proper, a neighborhood in Los Angeles. It doesn't hurt, of course, that executive producer Steven Spielberg was on board this project with his production company, which in turn brought in one of Spielberg's most gifted proteges to direct, Robert Zemeckis, a special effects aficionado with a knack for making his movies work like finely tuned clocks (Romancing the Stone, Back to the Future).
Perhaps the greatest single stroke of Who Framed Roger Rabbit is entirely inhabiting its setting of 1947 Los Angeles. The principals seemed to understand that meant film noir notes as well as cartoon antics, and there's even an impressive thread to this story that would likely be reviled today as "political" because it tells a story about the Los Angeles transit system, by reputation one of the best big-city systems in the world in the 1940s. It was scrapped, reportedly at the urging of the auto industry, for a freeway system that made car ownership (and carbon-based pollution) explode.
From screenplay to special effects to all the performances, Roger Rabbit walks a tightrope between noir and cartoon. It solves the problem by knowing so much about both. Start with the cartoon side. Roger Rabbit (Charles Fleischer) is a reasonably good distillation of the best cartoons of the time, a genial but hapless incompetent with a sputtering stuttering trademark style of speaking. He lives in a world of constant zany violence (which reminds me, what happened to Tom & Jerry in this?). "Accident-prone" is one way of putting it. Some have complained that the cartoon that opens the picture essentially upstages all the rest. It's that good. Roger's wife Jessica (Kathleen Turner, uncredited for some reason but of course perfect for the part) is a strutting vamp who sings torch songs in nightclubs and loves Roger because he makes her laugh. She calls him "honey bunny"—it's not actually the Pulp Fiction source but feels like it could be.
If licensing is the art of the deal for jukebox musicals, Roger Rabbit takes it some notches beyond, managing a scene with Donald Duck and Daffy Duck dueling on grand pianos, and another with Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny yukking it up as our main character, private detective Eddie Valiant (Bob Hoskins, who is also perfect), appears to be plummeting to his death in Toontown, the very strange sector of Los Angeles. They are still the only times these iconic Disney and Warner Brothers characters have ever appeared together in scenes.
As for Eddie Valiant and his great fall, he's OK—it's Toontown, Jake—but that brings us to the noir side of this picture. Who Framed Roger Rabbit also features a by-the-numbers but perfectly functioning hard-boiled mystery story roughly in the Hammett / Chandler tenor. It's fair and reasonably satisfying in its resolution. All the parts basically hold up. Roger Rabbit is a famous Hollywood star and toon who is being framed, as advertised, for the murder of Marvin Acme (Stubby Kaye), a toon mogul in a loud suit with a thing for Jessica. The motive: Roger was heartbroken to see photos of Acme playing pattycake with his wife. (Yes, that's right, pattycake.) Eddie Valiant is the detective mixed up in all this. Currently he is a drunk, embittered because he used to work for toons with his brother. Then one of them dropped a piano from 15 stories and killed his brother. Dropping pianos and safes from great heights is a preferred mode of murder for toons, who are able to survive such abuse themselves as a general rule.
The latter half of the picture is full of twists and turns that are there to be discovered. It's still a good deal of fun and a satisfying mystery story too. But my favorite part, as when I first saw it when it was new, remains Toontown itself, where everyone seems to be singing, "Smile, darn ya, smile," and the images throb in rhythm like classic Fleischer cartoons. The scene is full of freeze-frame opportunities for the home viewer as familiar characters or hints of them swim by constantly. Pretty sure I saw the dinosaur Fred Flintstone uses at his job at one traffic intersection. And/or maybe that was Dino? Almost makes you wish there really was a Toontown you could visit.
From screenplay to special effects to all the performances, Roger Rabbit walks a tightrope between noir and cartoon. It solves the problem by knowing so much about both. Start with the cartoon side. Roger Rabbit (Charles Fleischer) is a reasonably good distillation of the best cartoons of the time, a genial but hapless incompetent with a sputtering stuttering trademark style of speaking. He lives in a world of constant zany violence (which reminds me, what happened to Tom & Jerry in this?). "Accident-prone" is one way of putting it. Some have complained that the cartoon that opens the picture essentially upstages all the rest. It's that good. Roger's wife Jessica (Kathleen Turner, uncredited for some reason but of course perfect for the part) is a strutting vamp who sings torch songs in nightclubs and loves Roger because he makes her laugh. She calls him "honey bunny"—it's not actually the Pulp Fiction source but feels like it could be.
If licensing is the art of the deal for jukebox musicals, Roger Rabbit takes it some notches beyond, managing a scene with Donald Duck and Daffy Duck dueling on grand pianos, and another with Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny yukking it up as our main character, private detective Eddie Valiant (Bob Hoskins, who is also perfect), appears to be plummeting to his death in Toontown, the very strange sector of Los Angeles. They are still the only times these iconic Disney and Warner Brothers characters have ever appeared together in scenes.
As for Eddie Valiant and his great fall, he's OK—it's Toontown, Jake—but that brings us to the noir side of this picture. Who Framed Roger Rabbit also features a by-the-numbers but perfectly functioning hard-boiled mystery story roughly in the Hammett / Chandler tenor. It's fair and reasonably satisfying in its resolution. All the parts basically hold up. Roger Rabbit is a famous Hollywood star and toon who is being framed, as advertised, for the murder of Marvin Acme (Stubby Kaye), a toon mogul in a loud suit with a thing for Jessica. The motive: Roger was heartbroken to see photos of Acme playing pattycake with his wife. (Yes, that's right, pattycake.) Eddie Valiant is the detective mixed up in all this. Currently he is a drunk, embittered because he used to work for toons with his brother. Then one of them dropped a piano from 15 stories and killed his brother. Dropping pianos and safes from great heights is a preferred mode of murder for toons, who are able to survive such abuse themselves as a general rule.
The latter half of the picture is full of twists and turns that are there to be discovered. It's still a good deal of fun and a satisfying mystery story too. But my favorite part, as when I first saw it when it was new, remains Toontown itself, where everyone seems to be singing, "Smile, darn ya, smile," and the images throb in rhythm like classic Fleischer cartoons. The scene is full of freeze-frame opportunities for the home viewer as familiar characters or hints of them swim by constantly. Pretty sure I saw the dinosaur Fred Flintstone uses at his job at one traffic intersection. And/or maybe that was Dino? Almost makes you wish there really was a Toontown you could visit.
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