Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, guys, we're celebrating a milestone for this series. One in which I've never had the chance to do so until now. See, a lot of you don't know this, but I've been doing this text-based style version of Reaction & Review since February 25, 2020. We're almost at that date nearly 6 years later, and the reason why I never did these sort of anniversary celebrations is because I had always done my "Tales of the Longbox" marathon for two months. Well this year, I decided to narrow it down to a single month and thus it gives me more of a chance to review different movies that aren't strictly related to a certain marathon.
And that's where we are at now. This is my 6th year doing this series and I wanted to cover a movie that would be a nice celebration for this milestone. And guys, I have found the perfect movie to cover for this milestone. It is a film that came out in 1992. That movie is Ralph Bakshi's "Cool World".
I'm gonna tell you, guys, out of all of Bakshi's movies that I haven't seen yet, this is the one that I have been looking forward to the most. Now I've only covered one other film of his for this series, and that would be "Coonskin". And if you haven't read my review for that movie, then I'll tell you right now that I absolutely loved it. So much so that I really wanted to see the rest of Bakshi's filmography that I haven't seen yet, not counting the ones that I've seen outside of this series. I'm talking about films like "Wizards", "Hey, Good Lookin", and his attempt at "The Lord of the Rings". Everything else is still fair game, and this movie is the one that I wanted to see next of his.
Now I could go into detail about the history behind this movie and how the film that we got here was not the film that Bakshi had intended to write. To make a long story short, Bakshi wanted to write an animated horror movie. However, a little thing called studio interference happened, and a producer over at Paramount decided to rewrite the whole thing and, through some complications, Bakshi was forced to go through with the script that they had written, and thus here we are. Now I've heard rumors that one of the film's star, Kim Basinger, had a hand in writing the script to make her character the main focus of the film. However, I don't know how much of that is true or not. So I can't say anything much about it.
But now, I get to see what exactly the story here is. Because even though I do know a little bit about the production trouble this movie went through, I don't know the actual story for this movie's plot. All I know is that it's a hybrid of live action actors in a hand drawn animated world, much in the style of "Who Framed Roger Rabbit". I also know one of the other stars of this film is a young Brad Pitt. Beyond that, I know almost nothing about the movie's plot, as I've tried to avoid clips and trailers in relation to this movie.
So, I'm hoping that it's gonna be really interesting. I really want it to be good, despite all the interference that happened with the movie's story at the time, but who knows? The only way I'm gonna find out if this thing is any good at all is if I shut up and I push play, and I'm gonna do that right now. So, without further ado, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "Cool World".
14 minutes later
All right, guys, I'm really liking how the world of Cool World actually looks. It's dark, damp, kinda dreary in some places. But overall, I'm really liking how it looks so far. The story's kinda moving a little slow right now, but hey, at least it's giving me plenty to look at. So, at least that's a positive.
17 minutes later
Well, guys, I learned something new today. If you want to get away from the cops in Cool World, simply piss at them and they'll eventually run into a train. That, I guess, is a good lesson to learn.
9 minutes later
OK, I have a question here and this has been on my mind for sometime now. So, Frank was pulled into Cool World in 1945 near the beginning of the movie. And he's been in Cool World for 47 years since that time. And he hasn't aged a day all those years. So does that mean that if you are stuck in Cool World that you don't age physically whatsoever? I mean, it makes sense for doodles, but Frank obviously is not a doodle, so I'm curious as to how they're gonna explain that at some point, if at all.
6 minutes later
OK, I really like that cool attention to detail where Frank just takes a cigarette from this guy and is smoking it. And the cool thing about it is that the cigarette is obviously a cartoon as well. That is really neat and it's those attention to details that I really like about this movie.
14 minutes later
OK...so that pen of Jack's can apparently erase you in it's own way. Kinda odd, but it is still rather creative, so at least there's that.
13 minutes later
So, guys, you remember earlier when I asked about Frank not physically aging in Cool World despite being there for a really long time? Well, he's back in the real world now, in 1992 I should mention, and he still looks the same as he did back in 1945. So I guess you don't immediately age out when you travel to the real world from Cool World. So, I guess that sorta answers my question...kind of.
The Review
Well, guys, that was "Cool World". Let me go ahead and shut the movie off now...OK. So...what to say about "Cool World"? Well, I am gonna say that, even though I myself would've loved to have seen what Bakshi really wanted to do with this movie in his own vision before he got screwed over, I really did enjoy this movie. Now, did I enjoy it as much as, say, "Coonskin"? No, not quite. I loved "Coonskin" so much that it would be really difficult to top the awesomeness that was that movie. However, I still really enjoyed this film enough to where I can overlook some of the problems that this movie has.
So, let's start things off, as usual, with the writing. Now, most people who know about this movie are obviously going to compare it to "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?". A movie where you take live action actors and you put them in an animated world or vice versa. The only difference between the two is that "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" is more family friendly oriented, while with "Cool World", it's the complete opposite, where it's aimed more towards adults. Although to be fair, that's how most of Bakshi's films operated anyways. Strangely though, despite this film showing a lot of sexual nudity and blood at times, the film is still rated PG-13. I imagine that if Bakshi had his way with this movie, it would've gotten an R rating. Mind you, the PG-13 rating doesn't necessarily ruin the film at all, it's just something that I happened to notice, and if I were in charge in rating this movie, it would've gotten an R rating from me, personally.
But moving past that, the story here is, again, obviously gonna be compared to "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?". Because, in a way, both stories have similar ideas to each other. However, another big difference is, apart from it's target audience, is that the stories and it's characters go their own route. So for this story, we have our main character, Frank Harris, who after he gets severely injured in a motorcycle accident, where it also took his mother's life, he ends up being transported to the animated Cool World thanks to Professor Whiskers, who's had somewhat of an obsession with traveling to the real world himself. And apparently, he just lets Frank stay in Cool World because it jumps from 1945 to 1992 and Frank looks the exact same, only now he's a private detective. I could ask more about the oddity of his appearance not changing all this time, however, we're talking about a world where everything is a cartoon, so I'm just going to take a wild guess here and say that Cool World doesn't affect your age at all, whether you're a doodle or a noid, the latter in which is what Frank and Jack are.
Speaking of which, we have our other main character, Jack Deebs, who is a cartoonist that was released from prison after it was mentioned a little bit later on where he murdered his wife, who was sleeping with another guy. And during his time in prison, he was drawing a character known as Holli Would to keep his mind focused. And that's when the drawing of her comes to life and brings him to Cool World. Now the story admittedly is a little bit confusing at first because I honestly wasn't sure what this movie was trying to do for a story like this. And then finally stuff happens when our private investigator, Frank Harris, is trying to stop Holli and Jack from, well, having sex. And you're probably why that's so important? Well, as I mentioned earlier, all of the cartoon characters in Cool World are known as Doodles, while real people like Frank and Jack are known as Noids. And once Jack and Holli finally do it, Holli ends up becoming live action and they eventually find a way back to the real world, where other messed up things go wrong involving the space time continuum where both worlds seems to be merging together and other stuff like that.
Now I understand that what I tried to describe to you guys doesn't really make much sense. And in some ways, that is sorta true. Again, I was sorta confused by what was going on with the plot for a little bit. But I am gonna say that most of it does kinda make sense. Granted, there are some things here and there that I was wondering about while the watching the movie. For instance, the pen in which Jack carries is somehow able to erase, let's say, certain characters into the pen, thus they die...sorta. Again, it doesn't really make a whole lot of sense, and that part was the biggest thing that stood out to me because it's a magical pen that, again, can erase characters from existence. Well, not entirely erase, they're just "inside" the pen itself. They really don't do much with this sort of thing beyond that. Now it's possible that if I end up watching this film a second time, there may be something else important there that I missed out on the first time. But as is, it didn't really do very much in terms of plot, and it just seemed like an idea that was shoved in there, possibly by the revised script that was written in there. Though that's just my own theory, really.
Our characters here are very well developed and are likable. Frank Harris plays it up like one of those detectives you would see from the old noir films from way back when. Jack Deebs is the character artist, who also has a romantic interest in his own creation of Holli Would. And speaking of which, Holli, I feel, is gonna be seen as a mixed bag to some people. Because, at times, she can be kind of annoying. Although that's mainly towards the end when she shows more of her craziness. But at the same time, she's also the most interesting character of the entire movie. Not just because she's the obvious eye candy of the film, but she also has a spark of unpredictability. You don't know what she's going to do next until she actually does it, especially when she gets to the real world with Jack. And her relationship with Jack, even though it could be seen by some people as somewhat questionable, I really don't think that's gonna be big deal in the long run. I mean, I don't see many people having a problem with Roger Rabbit and Jessica Rabbit going out with each other, so I don't see very much controversy in regards to Jack and Holli being a thing. But what do I know?
One other thing that I wanted to say in regards to the movie itself is that the pacing here is very tight. Even though the movie is close to being an hour and 41 minutes long, it goes by pretty quickly. And you're not gonna notice it as you're watching the movie. It's one of the better paced films I have seen in quite a while where it doesn't feel too long and there's enough content here to where you're gonna be focused on the movie itself. So while the story may not exactly be great, the pacing more than makes up for it, so it's just something that you have to take for what it's worth here.
Overall, guys, the writing here, while certainly not one of Bakshi's strongest stories, is still pretty good for what he was working with. Now again, I would've loved to have seen what he wanted to create in his own vision for "Cool World". Perhaps maybe if he has an extra copy of his own script somewhere online, I would love to read someday. But still, what we got here is certainly really interesting in it's own unique way. And as for the acting, it's mostly pretty good. Granted, there are times when our main cast like Brad Pitt and Kim Basinger are hamming up their lines, but it's still pretty good for what they were working with. And as for the voice acting for all of the animated characters, all of that is pretty good, too. Granted, I don't think it's the best kind of acting I've heard from a Ralph Bakshi flick, but it's still pretty good in it's own unique way.
Now let's talk about the animation. And the one thing you guys need to know when watching a film by Ralph Bakshi is that he intends to use a lot of rotoscoping in his films. And for those of you who don't know what that is, the concept of it is that you take an actor's filmed movements or some kind of physical model of sorts and you trace over it for your animated films. This kind of technique was used a lot in animated films from the 70's to about the early 90's. And as I said, Bakshi was known for doing this quite often for his movies. An example of this would be his version of "The Lord of the Rings". This, to me, was probably the most noticeable of his films because I noticed it a lot, especially whenever there was a fight scene going on. But then again, I've also heard there was a *lot* of troubled production going on during the filming of that movie. I'm not sure if it was as bad as this film's production was, but still. Rotoscoping is something that Bakshi relied on a lot during his movies. This film is no exception.
And I am gonna say, for the most part, the rotoscoping here is pretty good. At least, from what I noticed while watching this movie. Holli, in particular, is animated pretty well and she's very expressive with her movements. A lot of the background characters who aren't Holli or Frank's girlfriend are drawn and animated like cartoon characters you would see from the 40's and 50's, where most of them are just bouncing around and moving all the time. Now visually speaking, it looks really impressive. In fact, the Cool World itself looks great. As I said, it's dark, damp, and kinda creepy all in one. I will say, though, what can be kinda distracting is the fact that random characters will appear whenever our main cast is talking and they're just doing random shit on screen. Now I get that Cool World is also meant to have insane characters, but for them to be doing this during scenes that are suppose to be important, can be a little distracting. Now I don't know if they were just added in because Bakshi wanted to show how insane Cool World can really be or he just added it in himself because he was forced to work on the revised script that he was given. I don't know, but either way, those little moments can be distracting at times.
But anyway, the art style is really good, and lot of the character designs have that unique Bakshi feel to them. Some of them look very reminiscent to past films of his, which is really nice to see. The color palettes are also utilized very well, too, as lot of the characters look very colorful in their designs as well. So, overall, the animation here is really good for this movie.
Camerawork here is also really good, but I do have to comment on a slip up that I noticed. So it happens during the third act of the movie and there's a scene where Holli is running away from Jack and Frank. Now do you remember when I mentioned the character of Professor Whiskers? Well, he's actually in this scene, too, except for one moment. See, Holli uses that magic pen I mentioned earlier where it kinda erases a certain character into the pen, and most of Whisker's body is sucked up in the pen. And as Whisker was screaming about something, we see Holli running towards the camera as she's attempting to get away. But in the background shot behind her, you don't see Whiskers. And I should mention, again, that the scene is suppose to have Frank, Jack, some girl I don't remember, and Professor Whiskers. And everyone in the background shot is suppose to be helping Professor Whiskers build back his body...except you don't actually see him, even though he's technically talking in the shot. Which makes me want to ask where the hell did he go? Did he just vanish, or was that just a slip up in animation that was suppose to happen, but didn't? I don't know, but that scene did make me kinda raise an eyebrow. I understand it probably wasn't worth the effort to animate a small part of a different angle, but it could've at least helped a little bit.
But setting that aside, the camerawork here for everything else is pretty good. Lighting here is lit perfectly fine. The sound-mixing here is good. The music here is pretty good, too. Granted, it's not quite as memorable as it could be, but at least it serves it's purpose, so it ends up being tolerable.
Ultimately, guys, when everything is said and done, am I able to recommend "Cool World"? I'm gonna go on a limb here and say yes. Now granted, I know this film was panned as one of Bakshi's worst movies, though I hesitate to say that, because I still really enjoyed it, and I do think that if you go into with the right mindset, I think you'll be able to enjoy it too. If you're an animation buff and you want to see what exactly this movie has up it's sleeve in regards to what Bakshi could do with this movie, then by all means, go check it out. It certainly is a really unique film. Now again, I would not put this one above other movies of his such as "Coonskin", but I still can't deny that I enjoyed it enough to where I'm happy that I actually get to own a copy of it for myself. And I think it actually it might get better on repeat viewings, too, hopefully. Now since I just mentioned "Coonskin", I'm gonna go and watch that next. I really want to see another film from Ralph Bakshi, and I do have one more of his films in reservation for this series. But until I get around to covering it, I'm gonna go and watch "Coonskin" next, once I get done finishing up this review.
And with that, guys, we come to a close on the 6th anniversary of Reaction & Review. I'm not totally sure if I'll do another kind of anniversary like this one, but who knows? Until next time, ladies and gentlemen, take care, and I will see you all later. Peace.
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