- Released: 20 May 2022
- Directed by: Akiva Schaffer
- Running time: 1 h 37 min
- Rating 3/5
Synopsis
Years after their show ended up getting cancelled, the estranged friends Chip and Dale must re-unite in order to solve a mystery of various cartoon characters going missing.
My Thoughts
People are really fucking divided on this one, huh? They either seem to think it's good or really fucking bad. Me? I'm kinda in the middle. It's just kinda average.
What everyone is talking about is of course the many references to other properties in this movie. It's essentially a bit of a modern-day version of Who Framed Roger Rabbit, with many different characters and elements of other media (including non-Disney properties) present. To me, this was mildly amusing, but it really doesn't influence my opinion of the movie. Sure, it's fun to see these random characters and elements expect where you normally wouldn't see them, and they make some decent jokes about some of them, but it also just feels a bit like they're pandering to the audience. "Look, you recognize this! Watch our damn movie!"
The movie in and of itself, disregarding the many elements borrowed from other properties, just isn't very good. I wouldn't call it bad, either. Just 6/10 territory. Decent. The conflict of cartoon characters going missing and being turned into bootleg versions of themselves was pretty inventive. I also liked seeing that in this world, characters of all types of media/animation seem to live, whereas Roger Rabbit mostly dealt with 2D animation because of the time. There's not just 2D and CGI characters here, but also (supposed) stop motion/claymation and puppet characters.
Now, where I do think the movie just kind of falls flat, is the some elements regarding the animation. With so many different styles crossing over, wouldn't it be cool if it was all genuine? All (supposed) 2D animation really being 2D, the puppets really being puppets, the claymation characters really being actual claymation? That's kinda where it sucks. Because with a few exceptions, pretty much all characters in this are CGI. Including the "claymation" characters. Including the "puppets". Including the "hand-drawn 2D" characters. It's all CGI, just in various styles to make it appear as if it's the other medium.
And that just kinda sucks. I would've loved to see this genuine love-letter to all these various types of animation. But to do pretty much everything (with a few minor exceptions) in CGI just feels so disingenuous. Especially with Dale continuously going on and on about having gotten the "CGI treatment" to the supposedly-2D Chip. It's so fucking obvious that Chip is CGI also, just in a more cartoon-y style and with cell-shading applied. I don't know, it feels lazy. This is Disney, they can give their projects any budget in the world as they're one of the biggest companies ever right now. But instead they still choose the easy and cheaper way out by just having everything be CGI. Feels lazy and makes this movie feel like less of a love-letter to animation. Roger Rabbit will always be impressive, this will just be forgettable in a few years outside of maybe the amount of properties referenced.
The other elements were all just decent. Characters? Decent. Score? Okay. (Voice) acting? Fine. Plot? Inventive but ultimately not executed in the best way. It just doesn't really stand out in any way outside of the whole "combining all these properties"-thing.
Also, one more thing I'll address: I think it's a bit in poor taste to portray "Sweet Pete" Peter Pan as a villain like this. The plot in this movie is that Peter Pan (the Disney character) failed to get any acting jobs after he grew up, and instead grew up to be a miserable villain. In real life, Disney's Peter Pan's voice actor (Bobby Driscoll) went from being one of their most beloved child stars at the time to being completely cast out once he hit puberty. From there on he had alcoholism and drug problems, up until he died alone and homeless in his early thirties. I'm not 100% certain if this was just a massive co-incidence or they're being coy about it, but either way it feels really uncomfortable. There's such a huge library of characters to choose from to portray as a villain here (Disney-owned and non-Disney owned alike), so to explicitly take the one character whose voice actor went through so much shit up until his unfortunate death feels kinda yikes to me.
But overall this is just a pretty average outing if you disregard all the properties that are being referenced. It doesn't feel like a real love letter to animation due to the fact that they almost solely relied on CGI, and none of it in particular stands out. If you want to see a crazy amount of references, you'll probably be amused, but outside of that it's really nothing noteworthy. Not bad either, mind you, but just average.
Also, disclaimer: I have no context about the original Rescue Rangers show going into this other than what the movie provides on information about it. Oh, and the Russian Gadget cult. Other than that I had literally no information about it going in. I didn't even know which one was Chip and which one was Dale. Just something I thought I'd mention. You don't need the context going in, it explains things fine, but there's probably quite a few references to the show that went over my head.
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