Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) Review

A good chunk of the reviews recently have been of movies that I hate.  It's easier to write a review of a bad movie than it is to write a review for the good one. Adjectives such as "awful", "terrible", "unbearable" are easy to write but I'm certain that all that negativity shortens my life by ten minutes every time I use those words. I suppose I think of it as my revenge for those movies taking away a portion of my life that I can't get back. Here's a review for a movie that I liked.

Who Framed Roger Rabbit takes place in 1947 Los Angeles where toons and humans live and breathe in the same world. The main character is, you guessed it, a cartoon rabbit named Roger who is framed for murder. Roger enlists the help of an alcoholic private eye named Eddie Valiant, played by Bob Hoskins (in quite a performance), to clear his name and protect his wife Jessica Rabbit (She's not bad just drawn that way). Eddie hates toons ever since a toon dropped a piano on his brother, killing him.

The man who wants to see Roger hang is Judge Doom (Christopher Lloyd) who seems more like a gangster than an elected official. Doom has invented a way to kill toons called "The Dip" made up of turpentine, acetone, and benzine (essentially oil, paint thinner, and film dissolver) and any toon that comes in contact with it melts instantly. The Judge employs a group of weasels as his henchman to help him hunt down Roger for the murder of Marvin Acme (I would have placed my bets on Wile E. Coyote what with all those faulty products Acme sold him).

Eventually the good guys win and without giving anything away Eddie gets justice for his brother's murder.

In 1964 Mary Poppins was the first feature-length movie to mix live-action and animation. The goal for this film was to go above and beyond Dick Van Dyke dancing with penguins (who actually appear in this). The special effects team and animators succeed at this and it still hasn't been surpassed. There is such a great detail to the movie that the same light that falls on human characters falls on the cartoon characters as well. The cartoon characters interact seamlessly with real objects like plates, chairs, boxes, guns, handcuffs....The list goes on and on

More than just spectacular special effects and animation the movie also has great, entertaining characters in a great, entertaining story. Maybe it's the fact that I get caught up in the story and I have no problem believing that toons are real.

Kids and adults should love this movie. Kids will like the cartoon characters cameos (Everyone from Dumbo to Woody the Woodpecker) and adults will love the noir mystery and the humor

There now wasn't that a lot more pleasent than some of my recent reviews?

★★★★