5 out of 5

Directed by: Robert Zemeckis

Roger Rabbit is not a perfect movie.  It’s not one that I give a high rating to out of deference to its classic status, or because good bits counteract bad bits or some other equation – as there at no bad bits – but rather because that which I consider imperfect about the flick makes structural sense, and is effected with the same precision as the rest of the movie.  And, overwhelmingly – although I suppose this is a combination of deference and equational justifying – even 25 years after the fact, there has not been a movie or tv show that has recognized or so skillfully applied the emotions stirred by Roger Rabbit, the exact mash-up of Eddie’s adult world and Roger’s child-like cartoon world.

The imperfection to which I refer – and to which I was sensitive even as a kid, watching this over and over, not preferring this part of the movie – is the film’s concluding fourth or so, which I think sacrifices the tight coupling of real/not-real for the sake of wrapping things up.  As noted above, structurally, this makes sense: We spend the majority of the flick with toons in the real world, so it follows we should at least see Eddie in the toon world.  And with that escalation, the final confrontation has to be some blend of the two in order to not feel like a regression.  So on paper, I totally get it.  In terms of execution, Zemeckis got it, as the cinematic blocking of noir LA gives way to zany angles and unmoving points-of-view when we’re full-on cartoon, and then adding that dash of zany back into reality for the final showdown. Finally, I have to admit that had we never been allowed into Toonworld, the movie would probably feel wishy-washy, unsure of itself.  To counter this the tone would have to go darker, which wouldn’t have been beneficial overall (see: The well-intentioned but flawed Cool World).  But the film takes such bold strides to make the setting a reality early on, that it’s inevitably (for me, at least) something of a letdown when it lets go of that tether to essentially fully admit to its fiction.  On a meta level, you can study this from a real life / imagined life perspective, but I don’t think the intentions go that deep, especially when listening to the commentary and realizing how much was added in / made up as they went along.

So I’ve given my criticisms a fair shake; some goodly space and deep, contemplative thought.  …I still love the movie.

Roget Rabbit concerns the wonderfully named Eddie Valiant, LA detective to the stars, played by the you’d-never-know-he’s-Scottish Bob Hoskins, in a 1940s spin on Hollywood in which cartoons are alive, living walled-off in Toonland and cast in movies exactly like one would cast flesh-and-blood actors.  When big producer RK Maroon fears for his top cartoon star – Roger Rabbit – is losing focus, he hires Eddie – who has fallen into a drunken rut since the death of his brother – to snap some pics of Rabbit’s wife, Jessica, engaged in bad business (patty cake, of course) to get Roger’s mind back in the game.  The pics upset the rabbit as intended, but when the man photographed with Jessica shows up dead, Roger is the first suspect. Eddie comes to believe otherwise, and has to fend off Judge Doom (Christopher Lloyd) while he searches for proof of Roger’s innocence.

The story has plenty of very obvious telegraphing and a couple of plot points that serve the atmosphere more than anything else, but while Roger’s plight and Eddie’s quest are directed and driven by the central murder mystery, the story gets something of a pass.  It’s another transportative layer of the film, slickly putting us into the scene-chewing style of film noir via the language of cinema; watch as the movie’s opening cartoon not only immediately pushes us into understanding the reality / cartoon mix, but as our view pans to a foreground, shadowed Eddie, dismissing the toons, we instantly understand the stylized tone as well.  And Zemeckis revels in that world, in the details of it, with fantastic production design and an unbelievably perfect jazzy, dark and playful score from Alan Silvestri.  His actors nail it as well, with Hoskins’ street-tough brogue and hunched posture embodying the down on his luck detective; Kathleen Turner’s vocalizations of Jessica spot-on for the knowing, femme fatale; Joanna Cassidy’s Dolores’ blend of sensitivity and toughness as Eddie’s sorta’ ex; Lloyd’s over-the-top glowering as Doom; and certainly Charles Fleishcher’s insane-but-with-just-the-right-touch-of-humanity Roger, allowing us to tie the emotionality of the two stylized worlds together.

The transportation effect to which I refer is, truly, the star of the movie, and what’s made it hold up so strongly in the decades following its release.  Animation director Richard Williams was in sync with Zemeckis’ vision – in behind the scenes interviews / extras, you can appreciate his zeal toward cartooning, and his laughter while imagining the scenes before they came to fruition – and found the ideal embodiment for the characters, and the way they would move in this world.  The latter aspect of which was another smart move on Zemeckis’ behalf, shooting the movie completely traditionally (besides the concluding parts, as mentioned above) and asking / expecting / hoping the animation team would understand how to appropriately slot the drawn bits in.  Which, under Williams, we can see that they did.  And while the tone required this to be hand-drawn (I cannot imagine it otherwise, and worry about the day a sequel materializes…), hundred of thousands of individual film cells drawn and painted on, the realization that some extra layering by ILM would be needed to seal the deal was yet another key piece to the puzzle; shadows, lighting, focus pulls – all were tweaked on different layers and composited by the effects team, which was a year of post-production work – a year after the actors shot their scenes generally without the type of tennis ball reference used for CG – before anyone could see a final product and sigh a breath of relief that it worked.

The shooting would go through several iterations for reference, but a final take would be just the actors, with some robotic and puppeteers manipulating objects.  Part of the inherent charm of the film was certainly this interaction, and the loose logic of when real props were used versus cartoon ones.  And as I’m sure you can imagine (or recall from the million times YOU’VE watched the film), this interaction doesn’t work without the actors selling it.  In the extras, Zemeckis mentions having the actors go through mome school, which may seem silly until you consider how often they (or Bob Hoskins in particular) would have to convincingly maintain an eyeline, or “pick up” something that should have weight.  And without that training, I suspect we, as viewers, would have seen through it.  We would not have been convinced.

I’m not recounting all of this just to say that the film is notable for its technical achievements (though it is), more to highlight how much was stacked against it, to have people – Bob Zemeckis – stand firm in the faith that it would end up as intended.  You can say a film like this wouldn’t get made now (not even considering the impossibility of how WB and Disney characters appeared side by side), but I’m not even sure how it got made then.

But lord, am I glad it did.  I might have my criticisms, but countless viewings has them whisked away by the overall power of the film; its ability to instantly transport you into its world.  Every time I watch it, I still wish the world of Roger Rabbit was real.

Watched via the 25th anniversary blu-ray.  I’m not positive any of the features (a making of special, commentary, a deleted scene – which I’m glad was taken out – some effects / non-effects scene comparisons) are new, but the transfer is great and if you don’t own any previous additions with the extras, they’re all worthwhile, no filler, with minimal footage crossover.