loved this film as a teen, but hadn't seen it for years. I was curious though, curious to see how well it held up over time and if I would still like it with a (slightly) more adult sensibility. How did it go? Read on.

Who Framed Roger Rabbit
Script/Story: 7
Acting/Casting: 8
Action: 7
Humor: 6
Eye Candy: 7
Fun Factor: 8
Replayability: 7
Overall: 8

As you can see from my scores, I really like this film. I saw it twice in theaters back in 1988, when I was old enough to have done the "that's not cool therefore I can't enjoy it." Fortunately I wasn't caught up in that sort of insecurity thing (very often) in my teens, and I'd always loved cartoons, so I was all over Roger Rabbit. I loved cartoons, liked the story, liked the characters, loved that cartoon characters from every genre and studio were in it, liked that it had an actual plot, etc.

I saw it once with friends, and then took my visiting grandmother to see it for a second time some weeks later (she hadn't yet seen it). I loved it the 2nd time as well, and was shocked when Granny didn't like it. She sat silently enough during the movie, but afterwards she said, "I cain't believe you dragged me to see that thing." in her Midwestern twang. She just didn't buy it at all; didn't get the spirit of things, didn't like the cartoons, didn't think it was funny, and so on. Not that she explained all of that to me then; I just sort of grasped it from her silent dismay.

My point in mentioning that is that I can understand why some people wouldn't enjoy the movie. It's madcap, it's wacky, it's stupid, it's childish, and I imagine a person who didn't like cartoons or who didn't want to be silly would feel they were far too mature to enjoy such absurdity. I'd think that was their loss, but I'm sure they like plenty of movies that I don't and they'd pity me my incomprehension towards their cinema of choice.

Despite the fact that Roger Rabbit is one of my favorite comedies of all time, I'd only seen it two or three times since it hit home video, and not at all in at least five years. Malaya has a tape copy of it on our movie shelf, and I kept meaning to watch it, both since I wanted to see it again, and since I was curious to see how well it would hold for me, as a semi-adult. I liked it, obviously, as the scores above should indicate. I was also surprised how well the animation worked. I remembered it being amazingly realistic in the first place, and it wasn't that good to my modern eye; but they did a nice job working the cartoons in with the real people, and they had good actors in it who did a good job pretending the cartoons were really there. It wasn't exactly Frodo and Sam with Smeagol from RotK, but it was convincing enough, once I bought into the obviously cartoony look of the cartoons.  Hell, it certainly worked better than the godawful computer generated cat-thing they slapped into the Garfield movie.

That being said, I'm sure I like it more now than I would if I'd just seen it for the first time ever. I don't like it just because I liked it so much as a teen, but my youthful attachment to it definitely colors my current opinion. Lots of the jokes in it got laughs from me now based on my memory of how funny they were the first (and second) time I heard them, and the slow bits of things that don't work so well are easier to overlook since I know how they're setting up stuff later, or how they are at least clever, if less than brilliant.  Eddie's entire awkward, "make the weasels laugh themselves to death" routine, for instance.

So while my opinion of this film is admittedly biased and my review is as well, I still enjoyed watching it, and I can still recommend it unreservedly; to any child and any adult who likes cartoons and can put up with some silliness.

All site content copyright "Flux" (Eric Bruce), 2002-2007.