In conversations concerning the best example of cinematic world building ever seen, Who Framed Roger Rabbit shouldn’t just earn a sizable mention, it should be the entire conversation. No film, before or since, has managed to create such a near-perfect world where reality and fantasy collide in a way that seems almost effortless, but instead took an ungodly amount of talent to realise. Obviously it was always going to be someone like Robert Zemeckis who would attempt to get Gary K. Wolf’s novel, Who Censored Roger Rabbit? to the screen because let’s face it, the man isn’t comfortable making a movie unless he’s reinventing the wheel. But despite the technical challenges inherent in bringing beloved cartoon characters to actual life, Who Framed Roger Rabbit still manages to reign supreme for the simple fact that it’s also a damn good film. So prepare enter Toon Town once more and experience one of the most innovative, creatively proficient – and bizarrely horny family films you’ve ever seen.
In Los Angeles of 1947, we find that the cartoon characters we all grew up loving are not only real, but co-exist with humans and appear in Hollywood movies with the big studios. In this world we find washed-up private detective Eddie Valiant, who once was a staunch ally to “Toons”, but now has become an embittered drunk after the death of his brother at the hands of an animated antagonist. Desperate for a few bucks, Eddie’s taken a job from Maroon Cartoon Studios to follow the wife of their biggest star, Roger Rabbit, and take salacious pictures if she’s having an affair.
After watching the hypnotically curvy Jessica Rabbit perform at the Ink and Paint Club, Eddie manages to score juicy pics of the pneumatic Toon playing patty-cake with Marvin Acme, the owner of the corporation that makes all the equipment that’s been fucking over Wile E. Coyote for years. However, after being told of his wife’s infidelity, Roger flies into a rage and flees off into the night, and later the police find Acme murdered in a very Toon-centric sort of way – a safe has been dropped on his head. While parents in the audience might be wondering how they’re going to explain any of this to their kids (actually, they probably didn’t bother – it was 1988), Eddie washes his hands of the whole deal and get on with his miserable life.
However, an on-the-run Roger knows that whenever a Toon needed help, Valiant & Valiant were the ones to go to, and so a reluctant Eddie gets dragged back into a caper he technically helped cause in order to aid Roger clear his name. However, it isn’t going to be easy, because as the case gets ever more complicated with missing wills and the duplicitous nature of Jessica, both Eddie and Roger also have the determined Judge Doom and his posse of giggling weasels on their trail, who have the green light to execute the rabbit with a toxic new concoction called the Dip.
No doubt there will be the odd one of you out there that’ll cry foul about the statement that WFRR reigns supreme over every other blend of live action and cartoon, and then use Space Jam as your main argument. However, while I’d normally respect the opinions of others, to compare the two is nothing short of trying to compare the Sistine Chapel with a literal pile of feces and while Space Jam certainly has sizable nostalgia value, Roger Rabbit wins paws-down due to it being far more impressive in every single way. Technically speaking, every frame of Zemeckis’ opus is a cinematic miracle and the lengths the filmmakers go to to realise this in a pre-CGI world is genuinely bewitching. Cartoon weasels menace our hero with real pistols, real plates are repeatedly smashed over Roger’s head and the Ink and Paint Club is a literally mind blowing sequence that sees the animated penguins from Mary Poppins serving real humans, real drinks, from real trays while ducks Donald and Daffy war on stage while performing a piano duet – naturally with real piano.
However, while other, similar, movies usually stick to just one group of animated characters, Roger Rabbit also managed a spot of cross-corporate synergy that manages to blend the vast stable of Disney characters with the Looney Tunes gang and beyond. While crazy amounts of fan service and easter eggs are common in this time of comic book crossovers and versus movies, watching Bugs Bunny rub shoulders with Mickey Mouse in the same shot is still pretty impressive, and there’s even nods to older toons such as Betty Boop who we find tragically has fallen on tough times since cartoons have gone to colour. But as impressive as all this is, the fact that it still perversely works as a functioning film noir too is nothing short of stunning. Setting matters in the 1940s not only smartly excludes any newer, flash in the pan characters, but it makes the blurring of reality and fantasy all the more perfect.
Props have to go to Bob Hoskins who skirted genuine mental illness trying to constantly imagine the sight lines of invisible co-stars, and the majority of the film’s success can be directly attributed to him going above and beyond the call of duty to sell the ever-loving shit out of it. Similarly, Christopher Lloyd delivers a generational slice of villainy in the form of the cadaverous Judge Doom, who effortlessly traumatised generations of kids thanks to the callous “dipping” of a cute, squeaking shoe and the mind-blowing, final act reveal. While I’ll freely admit that it’s an incredibly loud movie (literally half of Charles Fleischer’s Roger Rabbit dialogue is screamed at the top of his lungs) and it plays pretty rough for a kids film chiefly down to how unfeasibly (and amusingly) horny the film really is, its all subversively good fun. The devastatingly busty Jessica Rabbit pushes the ratings to the absolute limit as she purrs dialogue like “I’m not bad. I’m just drawn that way.” while flirting with a befuddled, half-naked Valiant and there’s also the eyebrow-raising antics of the gravelly voiced Baby Herman, who womanises and smokes giant stogies with reckless abandon. However, it all works flawlessly on multiple levels – you could see Roger Rabbit as a heartfelt celebration of beloved, old school animation, or you could enjoy it as a razor sharp film noir spoof, or even a strangely emotional salute to a bygone era (the plot all ultimately revolves around the modernization of the Los Angeles area), but however you choose to view it, it stubbornly remains unsurpassed in every conceivable way.
One of those films that gets even more remarkable the further we get away from the pre-CGI era, Who Framed Roger Rabbit manages to back up its remarkable practical filmmaking tricks and hand-drawn animation with a story that actually is genuinely magical, while simultaneously being surprisingly mature. “What do you see in that guy?” demands Eddie in a rare quiet moment with Jessica. “He makes me laugh.” comes the reply about her dufus husband – well, while Roger Rabbit is certainly funny, there’s a great deal more to him (and his movie) than that.
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