Fuga dal mondo dei sogni

I love this movie. It's so incredibly creative and interesting, and I love how fearless it is. Sure, it could be better, but I'm not going to complain because I know it already took so much thought and creativity as it is to get to where it got. Not surprising that most people didn't like it, it takes a very mature mind to be able to see what's actually really cool, interesting, and fun about it. No wonder it's a cult classic.

This is my review of director Ralph Bakshi's 1992 live action/animated film, "Cool World." In contrast to everyone else's opinions about this movie, I have to say that to me,"Cool World" is a half-good, half-bad film. There are elements in it that truly do rock, but there are other elements to it that truly do suck. One part about it that's awesome is the animation; sure it doesn't look 100% convincing combined with the live actors, sure there are WAY TOO MANY DOODLES that do absolutely NOTHING for the progression of the poorly-laid out plot, but I do think that all of the animated characters were drawn and colored really well, and the way they were animated is one of the good things other people DO praise this movie for because the hand-drawn visuals really do look great.

About Kim Basinger's performance as Holli Would; she did a pretty good job voicing her, I have to say that I was (and still am) impressed with how good Kim's voice-acting was. Yet, when she played the noid Holli,Kim really lagged. I think she was trying to portray how an animated character that's become flesh-and-blood behaves in trying to adjust to life in the real world, but when I watched the movie, the real-Holli performance out of Kim was not convincing at all. Gabriel Byrne's character of Jack Deebs was supposed to be THE main protagonist in the movie, but he was the least developed main character in the history of main characters in film. Brad Pitt (as Frank Harris) was the only actor out of the whole cast who truly DID act. He actually did a pretty good job at portraying this man whose life turned tragic (you'll have to see the beginning of the movie to know what I mean) and how the real world didn't feel real to him anymore, but Cool World did.

"Cool World" has so many great storytelling/plot elements to it that are either hardly ever explained in the film or just not explained at all. One of these full-of-holes plot elements that isn't explained in full are the mechanics as to how sex between a noid and a doodle ruptures the inter-dimensional fabric between Cool World and the real world (and how noids can spontaneously turn into doodles when both worlds collide). Another one is how the "Spike of Power" artifact really works as far as opening up a portal between both worlds and how it gives noids and doodles the ability to teleport back and forth between them. One more missing plot element: Jack Deebs's whole story. We know that he's been sent to prison for a crime of passion (again, see the movie to find out what I'm talking about), but that part right there could have been elaborated on more. And how exactly DID he get visions of Cool World in order to create a comic book series about it? How exactly was Holli repeatedly bringing Jack there and misleading him to thinking that he's getting visions/dreaming about Cool World? These things really need(ed) to be explained in full, NOT in pieces.

All in all, I don't think "Cool World" is a terrible movie at all. It is a good, entertaining movie, but one that's full of holes and only partially complete. Since I see things in this film that need to come out more as far as plot and character development. I seriously hope that there will be a remake of this film sometime in the (hopefully) not to distant future. A remake of a "bad" movie like "Cool World" (doesn't matter when exactly) can actually "save" the film so to speak by making the plot and characters of the original much, much better. For example, the 1986 fantasy film "Troll," directed by John Carl Buechler, opened to mostly negative critical response when it first came out, yet, Mr. Buechler IS remaking it for a theatrical release later in 2012. Another example is the 2003 live action "The Cat in the Hat," which got enormous negative response when it premiered. Now, the studio that made "The Lorax" is planning on doing a CGI remake of "The Cat in the Hat." And often, a remake of a "bad" movie fares a lot better (financially and critically) than the original. That is why "Cool World" is an excellent candidate for a remake because there are a lot of missing pieces to it that can be filled in, can be explained, the characters can still be developed in full, and that will make sense out of the story.

'Cool World' has the Ralph Bakshi touch which Robert Crumb described as 'everything this guy does comes out kinda half-baked'. There's a bunch of good animation as well as some less proficient work thrown into what was supposed to be a darker, sleazier Roger Rabbit movie. 'Cool World' is a complete shambles - but you get a good laugh towards the end of the film where the production must have run out of money: A 'transformation' effect is shown by rapidly turning the lights on and off inside a house. How's that for a Special FX. A point to note is that the film stars a young Brad Pitt (trying to work out where the hell the animated characters are going to be placed) and Kim Basinger (not looking at all her best in the poor lighting).

A mixed bag, to be sure, but not (at least in my opinion) the disaster that's widely believed to be. The story may be weak and the technology sometimes flawed, but there is one thing you can't accuse Ralph Bakshi of, and that is a shortage of imagination and creativity. The screen is filled with mostly enjoyable throwaway characters and gags, and even though the film keeps changing tones rapidly (from "slapsticky" to erotic to sad), it doesn't lose your attention. Neither does Kim Basinger, at her most gorgeous here. (**1/2)

Here's my review of Ralph Bakshi's 1992 Paramount Picture "Cool World", starring Brad Pitt, Gabriel Byrne, & Kim Basinger.

I won't give a plot synthesis, as that would spoil the fun. Instead, I'll cut straight to the chase and give you my brutally honest opinion on this film. I'll start with my view on the widely-held opinion that "Cool World" is a rip-off of "Who Framed Roger Rabbit". Even though "Cool World" is undeniably Roger Rabbit-esquire, and Brad Pitt said in an interview that "'Cool World' is like 'Roger Rabbit' on acid", sexy cartoon women and combining live-action and animation have been staples of Bakshi's films before Gary K. Wolf even created Roger Rabbit. "Cool World" reminds me more of "Gremlins 2: The New Batch", because A: The rule that noids (humans) and doodles (cartoon characters) can not have sex with each other is similar to the 3 rules for owning a Mogwai because they are ancient sacred rules that must not be broken, lest cartoon-type chaos wreck havoc, & B: Holli's goons (Slash, Bash, Mash and Bob) reminded me of Gizmo's 2nd batch of offspring (Mohawk, Daffy, George and Lenny).

Anyway, there are a lot of things wrong with this movie. First of all, there are lots of plot holes and plot points that are never fully explained. This might be fun for those with imagination, but most would find it lazy and rushed. Kim Basinger is a pretty lousy actress in this movie. True, her character Holli Would was meant to be hated, but the doodle and noid versions of Holli look and behave so differently it's almost hard to believe that they're the same character. Gabriel Byrne plays a pretty dull character in this film, and only part I was interested in Jack was when he became a super-powered doodle, and that wasn't even Gabe voicing Super Jack, it was Maurice LaMarche (who is based known as the voice of Brain from 'Pinky and the Brain'). Also, the combination of live-action and animation is not nearly as smooth (in both the way the cartoons are placed onto the live-action and in the live-action actors' interactions and responses to the cartoon characters that are added later) as it was in "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" and similar films like "Space Jam" and "Looney Tunes: Back in Action" and "The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle". To top it all off, the whole film just feels dated, even for 1992, I guess partly due to it using ink-and-paint-on-cells instead of digital ink-and-paint, which even Bakshi's protégés at the Ren and Stimpy show were able to afford on an animated TV series budget and use in several episodes of its 2nd season, which premiered only a few months after "Cool World"'s release.

But the disaster this film ended up being is actually not entirely Ralph Bakshi's fault. Ralph's original script for this had Holli (originally called Debbie Dallas) and Jack having a son who was a strange combination of live-action and animated body parts and who hated himself for what he was & what he wasn't and attempted to murder his father. But producer Frank Mancuso Junior (whose father, Frank Mancuso Senior, was then the head of Paramount Pictures) had the script completely rewritten which heavily muted the film's messages of the importance of fatherhood and the dangers of casual sex, and hired Kim Basinger (who was a pain in the butt during shooting and ruined the movie even more) and Gabriel Byrne (whom Bakshi felt was too much a foreigner to play an American underground cartoonist) when Bakshi wanted Drew Barrymore and Brad Pitt to play the leads.

But even with Mancuso's bastardizing Bakshi's original vision for the film, there are still some things in "Cool World" to enjoy. For one, the animation is mostly quite good and reminded me at times of Tiny Toons and Ren & Stimpy. Also, Brad Pitt does a rather decent job acting in this picture (despite his interactions with cartoon characters leaving a good amount to be desired, as he's no Bob Hoskins) as his character Frank Harris is rather likable. Also, Harris's arachnid doodle partner Nails is a delightful nutty character voiced by Charlie Adler, my personal favorite voice-over actor who has done many of my most favorite cartoon characters like Buster Bunny, Cow and Chicken, Ickis, Ed and Bev Bighead and many more. The secondary and minor doodles like Lonette (whom I consider a much more desirable woman than Holli due to her being a brunette and having a caring personality), the aforementioned Goons, Sparks and Doc Whiskers are all interesting (plus they're voiced by greats like Candi Milo and the aforementioned Maurice LaMarche), as are the noids Jennifer and Isabelle Malley. Too bad they're kind of stuck in the background. And there are quite a few memorable laugh-out moments that make this film worth seeing at least once IMHO.

So in the end, although this film would be perfect for Mystery Science Theater 3000, I still find "Cool World" interesting and enjoyable. It's certainly not as great as "Who Framed Roger Rabbit", I'm not quite sure if I find it better than "Space Jam" and "Looney Tunes: Back in Action" and I definitely find it better than the well-intended but ultimately lame "Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle" movie (despite AoR&B having better production values than CW). All in all, "Cool World"'s not a very good, but it is very interesting and I recommend that everyone should watch it at least once (but it's not for the immature and/or overly sensitive).

Look out for: Future Ren & Stimpy producer Steve Worth in a cameo as a comic book store patron (he's the fat guy), and also for Maggie "Maude Flanders" Roswell.