Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988)

It's my birthday this week! Happy fucking Birthday to me! So I'm taking a mini break this week to watch something for me. Something I want to watch but could still kind of fit the mould for one of my ongoing projects. And well, I've decided this week it's Disney Week and we are going to watch one of the first ever movies I remember watching, and I think it's because my dad taped it from TV: Who Framed Roger Rabbit. I can't even remember how old I was? Single digits? But one of my oldest childhood memories is remembering watching this and just having my mind blown by there being a mix of animated characters and live action characters. If you think about it, even by 2020's measurements it's still mildly impressive now and an interesting idea. It's been a long time since I last watched this, I vaguely remember watching it whilst wasted at a house party when I was teenager which, technically doesn't count, so yeah I'm looking forward to watching this one again. Sober.

Welcome to Toontown! And after a slapstick toon intro we are introduced to the movies protagonists; Roger Rabbit (Charles Fleischer) and Private Detective Eddie Valliant (Bob Hoskins) who hates toons after one killed his brother (dropped a piano on his head) but finds himself hired by Mr. Maroon (Alvin Tilvern), head of Maroon Cartoons, to do some private snooping on Roger's wife, Jessica who is suspected of playing away behind Roger's back. Desperate for the money Eddie takes the job, and after he... finds evidence of Jessica Rabbit (Kathleen Turner / Amy Irving) playing patticake with Marvin Acme (Stubby Kaye) Roger doesn't take it very well. And the following morning Eddie learns that Marvin Acme is found dead, with Roger being chief suspect. In charge of the case is the sinister Judge Doom (Christopher Lloyd), a man with no shortage of contempt for toons and intending to "rein in" the insanity paired with his cocktail of chemicals called "the dip": being one of the only ways to kill a toon, literally by dissolving it... With a team of toon weasels, who are all caricatures of old film noir gangsters, at his disposal he intends to track down Roger and ensure he serves justice for killing a human. That justice being; a quick dip in the uhh... dip. Getting back to his office, Eddie discovers Roger waiting for him who pleads and pleads for Eddie's help which he initially refuses to give, but when the weasels rock up to take Roger away, Eddie helps him evade them, partly out of sympathy, but partly also because Roger handcuffed himself to him... After going to visit his former business partner / former girlfriend Dolores (Joanna Cassidy) and enlisting her help to free him and Roger from the handcuffs, Eddie explains that he suspects Mr. Maroon and Jessica had Marvin Acme bumped off so that Mr. Maroon could get his hands on Toontown. Leaving Roger with Dolores for the moment, Eddie goes back to the office where, after stepping out the shower, he finds Jessica waiting for him. She explains she is just as much a stooge in the scheme as Roger and that Eddie was, set up to take the photos of her and Marvin Acme so that Mr. Maroon could use them to blackmail Acme, threatening Jessica that Roger would never work again if she didn't play along. She asks Eddie for help but Eddie is still suspicious and after meeting with Dolores right after, she explains that Cloverleaf; a faction in Toontown who seem to be on a rampant acquisition scheme are actually the highest bidders for Toontown and unless Acme's will turns up by midnight, they'll have their hands on the whole place! But their conversation is cut short when they hear jovial piano music blasting out of the bar. Inside they find Roger dancing around and entertaining the whole place, which only attracts the attention of Judge Doom and the weasels. Despite Dolores and Eddie trying to hide Roger when they turn up, Judge Doom is able to draw him out with a comedy sketch and snatching him up, Roger is literally on the verge of a quick dunk in the dip until some quick thinking from Eddie - he forces a drink of bourbon on him which causes Roger to go nuclear - creates a diversion long enough for Eddie and Roger to make a getaway. On Benny. The Toon taxi cab. Hiding out in a cinema, Eddie explains to Roger about how a toon killed his brother and how they never did catch the toon that did it and the pair start to bond a little bit with Eddie apologising for mistreating Roger at first. It's during a newsreel in the cinema that Eddie suddenly makes the connection between Mr. Maroon and Cloverleaf and he races over to Maroon Cartoons, leaving Roger on guard in the car park. Who promptly gets taken out by Jessica... After a bit of light persuasion, Mr. Maroon revealed that Cloverleaf wanted to buy both Maroon Cartoons and Acme's Studio but as a pair, and when Acme wouldn't sell he planned to use the photos of him and Jessica to blackmail Acme into selling but that was as far as it went. And before he can confess anything any further, somebody gets the drop on them both from the window, firing from a long slender gun that kills Mr. Maroon, but Eddie is able to make it to cover just in time. He peaks out the window and just manages to catch a glimpse of Jessica fleeing the scene, and jumping in her car. Making a break after her, figuring out that she likely abducted Roger beforehand, Eddie gives chase all the way too Toontown. After a bit of impressive slapstick comedy with Eddie being bounced from gag to gag, lots of cool cameos at this point too, Eddie eventually catches up with Jessica and just when he thinks she's about to pull the trigger on shooting him, she instead takes out whoever it was behind him. Still not trusting Jessica entirely she explains that it was Doom who shot Mr. Maroon with Doom suddenly springing back to life and escaping down a nearby alley. Jessica explains that she hit Roger on the head with a frying pan and stashed him in her car to keep him safe, which in Toontown makes perfect sense, but before they can make after Doom, the weasels turn up on the scene but conveniently so does Benny the taxi cab giving Eddie and Jessica a means of escape. Jessica explains to Eddie that Doom has been wanting to get his hands on Toontown for some time, and Acme confided as such in Jessica before he died. He left his will with Jessica but it was just a blank piece of paper when she opened it. But before she can reveal more, Doom leaves a spillage of dip on the road causing Benny to career off and crash. Doom has Eddie and Jessica both arrested and taken to the Acme factory where Doom explains he's the sole stockholder of Cloverleaf Industries and that everything becomes his if the will doesn't appear within the next 15 minutes! He also reveals a machine he's had built to "dip" Toontown literally off the face of the Earth! And that he plans to use the land to build a massive freeway and a whole commercial village to accommodate it. Meanwhile Roger, in Eddie's car, catches up with Benny who tells him that Eddie and Jessica have been taken to the factory, so they race on over. And mid-speech, Roger bursts in on Doom and the others but is promptly stopped when one of the weasels literally drops a ton of bricks on him. Tying Roger and Jessica up and suspending them above the only wall separating Acme Factory from Toontown, Doom intends to make Mr. and Mrs. Rabbit his first victims of the dip machine, leaving the weasels to finish the job, but a quick thinking Eddie begins a crazy slapstick routine to make the weasels laugh until they literally laugh themselves to death, but in doing so they accidentally activate the machine. Fighting desperately to avoid to jetstream of dip, Roger and Jessica hang precariously in front of it as Eddie tries to shut it off, but only manages to switch it's direction. Then getting the drop on him, Doom gets the better of Eddie before literally trying to run him over with a steamroller, but after Eddie turns the tables and Doom gets stuck to the roller thanks to some Acme glue, it's Doom who gets flattened out! Not Eddie. But there's only one way Doom could survive a quick press under the steamroller... if he was a toon himself! Which he is! And he reveals to Eddie his true appearance and that he was the same toon who killed Eddie's brother. After initially getting the better of Eddie, there is a short scrap and Eddie releases the valve on Doom's dip machine causing the tank to leak and a massive puddle of dip to quickly form which dissolves Doom from the feet upwards causing him to melt into a sticky puddle! As the toons begin to celebrate Doom's dissolving, it transpires that Acme's will was with them the whole time when it reappears on a sheet of paper after being written in "disappearing and re-appearing" ink with the whole of Toontown being left to the toons themselves!

Who Framed Roger Rabbit is great. But hey look, did you really need me to tell you that? But even some 35 odd years later it's still holding up as just a really good movie. Bob Hoskins is fantastic, the blurring of animation with live action is brilliant, the blurring of the two... universes... if you like of cartoon animation and real life is balanced really well and interestingly. The plot and the story are great; built around a film noir style mystery movie with the wacky, goofy animation stuff sewn into it and all of that aside it's just a really entertaining, really enjoyable family movie.

Bob Hoskins is basically the lead here and in terms of "real people" he pretty much occupies the most screen time. And he was fantastic here, being the kind of anthesis to the wacky, over-the-top toon characters and being far more grounded. Equally Christopher Lloyd is great and the menacing and sinister Judge Doom spending the whole movie being the level headed but callous villain until his toon alter-ego is exposed at the end and he goes into full on wacky mode. And toon-Doom was actually a little bit unsettling! He was completely insane and evil but there he is trying to saw Eddie in half with a giant animated gold buzzsaw! And he looked crazy being mostly human save for his animated toon eyes.

Production-wise everything here was spot on and not a step as missed. This really is Disney at it's finest and it's obvious that an incredible amount of effort and attention was put in to make sure everything was absolutely perfect. Even for late 80's standards and even in the days of high def video the blurring between live action with animation is still almost virtually seamless and compounding that the movie still utilizes a handful of different cinematography techniques, at times mimicking the same techniques used by 30's film noirs, to make the film visually appealing.

And the storyline is great too. I'm vaguely aware that it was adopted from a book but the plot does a great job of keeping you guessing on what's going on right up until about the last 20 minutes but at the same time, whilst finding moments to weave in the goofy, slapstick toon stuff, it does enough to keep the movie interesting and build a narrative thread. The balance that it strikes between being a mystery and a slapstick cartoon is perfect and there isn't too much in either direction to alienate audiences from either camp. I'm not saying if you liked The Maltease Falcon you are going to love Roger Rabbit, but there's enough of a mystery storyline here to at least make it credible and engrossing. 

I really enjoyed watching this again, now that I'm older. And sober. And I think it genuinely has to be chalked up as one of the best movies Disney has ever put out. They got a lot right with this one and I really enjoyed all the individual little Disney and Looney Tunes cameos that shown up. It just added an extra layer of gloss to what was already a good movie to begin with. Genuinely just a really well put together, well produced, enjoyable movie that I have very little, virtually nothing to criticize it for. Strong 4 out of 5.