Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (1988)

Up until the point that Marvel and DC do a film crossover, the biggest one there ever was, is still this one.

You could disagree with me, but you'd be wrong. This has Daffy Duck ànd Donald Duck; or Mickey Mouse ànd Bugs Bunny.

Ha, told you I was right.

Let's start with something that often gets forgotten: on a technical level alone, this is an absolute masterpiece. Nowadays, you get a lot of films where characters are meshed with real life backgrounds or actors via CGI and sometimes that works fine, other times it looks like crap. Here, they had to come up with an astounding array of gadgets and trickery in order to fool the crowd that cartoon characters (as in: hand drawn animation) interact with the human characters. It's a lot harder to do and takes a  ton of work. And wouldn't you know it? They pulled it off. It's seamless most of the time and it still looks good thirty years later. Think of Robert Zemeckis what you want, but the man had the tenacity to try this and he actually pulled it off.

Well, not him alone obviously, but the vision is his. So massive kudos there.

Set in the 1940's, it is the heyday of film studios. But not everything is okay. A company called Cloverleaf is buying a lot of property around town and there's intrigue and mystery abounds, especially when Marvin Acme, owner of Toon Town, gets brutally murdered. Our titular character Roger gets framed for this, but there's a lot at play. What role does his wife Jessica have in all of this? Why is Judge Doom so bent on dispensing justice the hard way on cartoon characters? Will our 'hero' Eddie Valiant regain his composure and save the day?

Questions, questions, questions...

I will not answer these. If you've seen the film, you know. If you haven't, I don't want to spoil this one.

No really.

I don't want to spoil anything, because this film is an experience in and of itself and you have to undergo it all.

This film does not only work because of the technical accomplishments, but mainly because it has heart and great characters. Bob Hoskins has never been better (to me, at least), Roger is great, Christopher Lloyd is unceremoniously creepy as all hell and as a teenage boy, it's pretty safe to say the character of Jessica Rabbit had a profound impact on me. As in: I never believed someone could have the hots for a cartoon character, but well... There you go. Nowadays, it's considered a cliché, but back then, it wasn't. You also didn't have that whole 'cartoon character fetish' yet. And I know she was mainly modelled after Red from the Tex Avery-cartoons, with some classic sultry actresses thrown in and voiced in a husky pornvoice by Kathleen Turner, but hey... Don't think badly of me when I quiver whenever Jessica Rabbit is on screen or says something. Give me some credit.

Also, most of the jokes in this film work really well. They balance it all nicely with the truly disturbing scenes. And disturbing, they are. Nothing traumatized me as an 8-year-old kid as much as the moment that Judge Doom executes a cartoon shoe. It may sound silly, but believe me: that stuff was hardcore.

Also, the finale scared me shitless. I won't spoil what happens, but those in the know, know. Yikes.

Nevertheless, despite it being forgotten at times at how groundbreaking and fun this was and is, it is still deserving of a lot of love and affection. Each time I revisit this one, it brings a smile to my face and that alone has to be worth something, right?