Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988)

 Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988)

Robert Zemeckis’s Who Framed Roger Rabbit is a groundbreaking film reminiscent of those hard-boiled 40 film-noirs….except animation is used. The whole concept of the movie is combining animation and live action and the results were astounding from a visual perspective. As of publication of this review, this remains the only film where Disney and Warner Brother characters appear with one another. That explains the piano duet with the famous ducks, Daffy and Donald, am I right? From a story perspective, we follow a noir story beat-to-beat. Sometimes the story can fall into “only for kids” zone and Roger Rabbit himself is a bit annoying at times, but it is really a blast watching all of our toons come together in live action and look…real!

Bless the hearts of director Robert Zemeckis (Back to the Future), producer Steven Spielberg, animator director Richard Williams, and the hundreds of animators that worked long, long hours to create a film that broke boundaries. The film was released before CGI, so all animation was hand-drawn! Considering Zemeckis and cinematographer Dean Cundey’s rapid camera movement, just imagine the difficult work it was for these animators. Even today, everything looked so realistic, so stylish. The movements of the toons were in sync with their live action counterparts. How did this process happen? The live action scenes were shot first with the animation carefully added afterwards. To deliver the best voice performance, the man who voiced Roger Rabbit, Charles Fleischer, decided to dress up as his character on set. I am sure it helped the live actors too.

Zemeckis originally wanted to make the film in the early 80’s but Disney passed because the director was not a known commodity yet. After the back-to-back box office successes of Romancing the Stone and Back to the Future, Disney felt comfortable enough with him onboard. The movie had the highest budget for any animated film at time and Zemeckis made sure each dollar counted, but he allowed for more risqué (yeah….you know….Jessica Rabbit) scenes to be added. Because of more mature content, Disney opted to release the film under its Touchstone label. The screenplay, based off the novel from Gary K. Wolf, was written by Jeffrey Price and Peter Seamen. They studied the works of the Golden Age of American animation, and we see their influences. The Looney Tunes. Mickey/Minnie Mouse, all can be found! While filling their script with nostalgia, thankfully enough room was left for an original story involving the toons and humans.

The story takes place in Los Angeles in the 1940’s. Humans and toons live in a world where they co-exist with one another. Roger Rabbit (voiced by Fleischer) lives an easy life with his wife, Jessica Rabbit (uncredited voice acted by Kathleen Turner). She also happens to be fooling around with the head of Maroon Cartoons. If that was not bad enough, he happened to be found dead and Roger is accused of murder. Enter Eddie Valiant (Bob Hoskins). He has a personal vendetta against toons, but the down-and-out detective is forced with helping Roger clear his name and escape from the relentless Judge Doom (Christopher Lloyd). They must trek all over LA…and even into Toon Town to complete their mission.

I can imagine how weird it must have been for the live actors to perform opposite a green screen with no one there (aka the toons). It is a blink of an eye easy for actors now, but not in 1988. That said, everyone delivered admirable performances. Sure, some can occasionally venture into over-the-top territory, but we are talking about toons. Bob Hoskins is reliably great and delivers a deep performance. I think Christopher Lloyd is honored with the best performance. His villain is so memorable. Everything from his black clothes/hat to the fact he does not blink is unnerving. Even Disney officials were concerned he would be too scary for kids. Of course, it was great seeing the toons…which is why the movie exists in the first place. I grew up loving these characters with this movie playing a big part in that. I was not alive when this originally premiered, so I can imagine the awe people had seeing these groundbreaking visuals for the first time.

Overall, Who Framed Roger Rabbit should be seen just to see where animation and live action combined for the very first time. In addition to that, we have a story with memorable characters and one straight from the noir era of the 1940’s. It mostly works. It holds up very well…even if I find Roger Rabbit himself a bit annoying at times. This film is officially the beginning of the ‘Disney Renaissance.” There would be no The Little Mermaid or The Lion King without this effort from Robert Zemeckis. Backed by a jazzy score from Alan Silvestri, excellent direction from Zemeckis, and beautiful animation from Richard Williams, this film stills holds up very well in the modern world.

My Grade: B+