Day 31: Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988)
I’m not sure if this counts as part of the challenge, but as with Mary Poppins who cares when it is this good
We both LOVED this movie and this was both our first time watching it. I might have caught a few moments of it when I was a kid, but this was the first time properly seeing it. I love when you watch a movie for the first time and you think ‘Where has this been all my life?’ and just know you're going to watch it again and again. What more could you wish for from a Zemeckis/Spielberg collab!
The whole idea of the film is completely brilliant! - parodying everything from film noir and cartoons, but very affectionately. They could have gotten away with a great idea, with all the fun visual jokes and recognisable characters popping up every few minutes, but they didn't rest on their laurels. Everything else about the movie is brilliant too.
I loved the film from the first few minutes of the opening sequence - that brilliant subversion of your expectations as the director appears shouting ‘Cut!’ and you’re thrown out of the cartoon world you thought you were in and into an entirely new one, is just one example of how the writing and visual storytelling work together so beautifully in this movie. Even though you’re expecting it, it’s still a thrill. A few minutes later superimposed text appears telling you this is Hollywood in the 1940s, but that almost felt disappointing to me. You're telling me it’s Hollywood in the 1940s loud and clear without words, don’t doubt yourself movie or your audience!
The story line is great, with twists and turns, but also quite touching and sweet at its core. Roger could have been annoying but definitely isn’t. It is nice to see a character who can be vulnerable and hilarious and whose goal in life is just to make other people laugh.
Bob Hoskins performance is great - just one example of how this movie could be just good and goes for great instead. He could have just been the hard-drinking, disillusioned cop, but they gave him a tragic backstory and he really plays that sorrowful side beautifully. His accent isn’t perfect and his cockney comes through every now and then. Only mentioning this because I had a go at Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins - seems to me like this accent matters as little as Van Dyke’s did to the performance. Who cares about accent when they have so much fun and bring so much depth!
That tone is actually carried throughout the movie and it’s beautiful. There are moments where you laugh out loud at a line or a moment (for example ‘A toon killed his brother. Dropped a piano on him’), but then those moments have real implications in the story. It’s completely brilliant writing - tight plot, every line of dialogue perfect for the tone of the movie. ‘I’m not bad, I’m just drawn that way’ has to be one of the best lines there’s ever been in a movie.
The music is also seriously cool and really captures the mood.
The effects are great, even the bits where the toons and humans are interacting, which must have been so tough to do. Of course, it’s not perfect, but the animation and film seemed to come together almost as well as computer-generated effects and characters do these days. The animation is also great - the characters have depth and weight as well as looking fantastic. Amazing how they’ve managed to make it look like they’re interacting with the world in a very real way, even though everything about it is so cartoonish. Your brain tells you that this is how cartoons would interact with the real world, even while it’s telling you that could never happen. This is a hard concept to explain, but basically, the visuals are on point!
I love the bit in Toontown and completely forgot I was watching a real actor interacting with cartoons, loved seeing all the recognisable characters living and interacting in the same place. We had so much fun throughout the movie exclaiming to one another ‘Did you see Dumbo! Did you see Mickey! Did you see the broomsticks from Fantasia!”
I really liked the whole movie, but my sister felt the last ten-fifteen minutes could have been stronger. She said the descent into pure cartoon caper didn’t seem satisfying and didn’t fit so well with film noir style of the rest of movie. I did wish Roger and Jessica had a bit more to do though watching them almost get dipped time and time again was tense and funny.
Altogether this is a great movie and the best we have seen for ages!!!
I’m not sure if this counts as part of the challenge, but as with Mary Poppins who cares when it is this good
We both LOVED this movie and this was both our first time watching it. I might have caught a few moments of it when I was a kid, but this was the first time properly seeing it. I love when you watch a movie for the first time and you think ‘Where has this been all my life?’ and just know you're going to watch it again and again. What more could you wish for from a Zemeckis/Spielberg collab!
The whole idea of the film is completely brilliant! - parodying everything from film noir and cartoons, but very affectionately. They could have gotten away with a great idea, with all the fun visual jokes and recognisable characters popping up every few minutes, but they didn't rest on their laurels. Everything else about the movie is brilliant too.
I loved the film from the first few minutes of the opening sequence - that brilliant subversion of your expectations as the director appears shouting ‘Cut!’ and you’re thrown out of the cartoon world you thought you were in and into an entirely new one, is just one example of how the writing and visual storytelling work together so beautifully in this movie. Even though you’re expecting it, it’s still a thrill. A few minutes later superimposed text appears telling you this is Hollywood in the 1940s, but that almost felt disappointing to me. You're telling me it’s Hollywood in the 1940s loud and clear without words, don’t doubt yourself movie or your audience!
The story line is great, with twists and turns, but also quite touching and sweet at its core. Roger could have been annoying but definitely isn’t. It is nice to see a character who can be vulnerable and hilarious and whose goal in life is just to make other people laugh.
Bob Hoskins performance is great - just one example of how this movie could be just good and goes for great instead. He could have just been the hard-drinking, disillusioned cop, but they gave him a tragic backstory and he really plays that sorrowful side beautifully. His accent isn’t perfect and his cockney comes through every now and then. Only mentioning this because I had a go at Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins - seems to me like this accent matters as little as Van Dyke’s did to the performance. Who cares about accent when they have so much fun and bring so much depth!
That tone is actually carried throughout the movie and it’s beautiful. There are moments where you laugh out loud at a line or a moment (for example ‘A toon killed his brother. Dropped a piano on him’), but then those moments have real implications in the story. It’s completely brilliant writing - tight plot, every line of dialogue perfect for the tone of the movie. ‘I’m not bad, I’m just drawn that way’ has to be one of the best lines there’s ever been in a movie.
The music is also seriously cool and really captures the mood.
The effects are great, even the bits where the toons and humans are interacting, which must have been so tough to do. Of course, it’s not perfect, but the animation and film seemed to come together almost as well as computer-generated effects and characters do these days. The animation is also great - the characters have depth and weight as well as looking fantastic. Amazing how they’ve managed to make it look like they’re interacting with the world in a very real way, even though everything about it is so cartoonish. Your brain tells you that this is how cartoons would interact with the real world, even while it’s telling you that could never happen. This is a hard concept to explain, but basically, the visuals are on point!
I love the bit in Toontown and completely forgot I was watching a real actor interacting with cartoons, loved seeing all the recognisable characters living and interacting in the same place. We had so much fun throughout the movie exclaiming to one another ‘Did you see Dumbo! Did you see Mickey! Did you see the broomsticks from Fantasia!”
I really liked the whole movie, but my sister felt the last ten-fifteen minutes could have been stronger. She said the descent into pure cartoon caper didn’t seem satisfying and didn’t fit so well with film noir style of the rest of movie. I did wish Roger and Jessica had a bit more to do though watching them almost get dipped time and time again was tense and funny.
Altogether this is a great movie and the best we have seen for ages!!!
