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Chilly Down
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Apr 13, 2002
- Messages
- 992
- Reaction score
- 52
Just saw the movie last night. My thoughts:
This movie is a weird hybrid. On the one hand, you have the Warner Bros. animated stuff, most of which works pretty well; on the other, you have the typical big bloated WB production of late that has a lame nonsencial plot and big special effects with no purpose behind them. (I think of Joel Schumaker's Batman movies, Wild Wild West, The Avengers, and League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. I don't know if that last one was actually Warner's/New Line or not, but it certainly fits the mold.) And you could even say there's a third movie going on: the Joe Dante Pays Tribute to All the Movies He Watched Growing Up film. While some of the references are fun for film buffs, Dante has featured cameos by a lot of these folks before; it's really beginning to feel like old hat.
There were absolutely no surprises in the plot. The setup for the climax was painfully obvious, so there was no payoff. I never believed for a second that Steve Martin's character could have any real threat against civilization. Even Danny DeVito's alien character in Space Jam had greater menace (though it wasn't hard to beat). Think of the original "Ghostbusters" -- even in a broad comedy like that, where the actors are practically winking at the camera, the villians seem to pose a serious threat, and the suspense genuinely builds throughout the film.
Part of the problem is that the cartoons don't really seem to be there. I mean, even when they're thrown out of the car, they just appear back in the car in the very next scene. Yeah, cartoon characters have been doing that for years for humorous effect. But it gets to the point in this movie where it seems like nothing can affect the characters at all, so it doesn't really matter what happens to them (and hence, why should we care?). That's why the invention of "the Dip" was so brilliant in Roger Rabbit -- it gave the characters a necessary vulnerability, so we could actually be concerned about what happens to them.
The voices are great -- Joe Alaskey's Daffy is reliably good, and his Bugs is probably the best I've heard in years. All of the other characters sound very good except for Sam, who oddly enough is way off. (In Roger Rabbit, Alaskey did such a good Sam, I didn't even know it wasn't Mel.) Most of the cameos, animated and otherwise, are actually quite funny, though it doesn't help the movie build to anything.
The animation is gorgeous, and as noted by others, the Louvre scene is visually brilliant and quite funny. I could have done with a 7-minute short just on this, and forgotten about the rest of the movie.
(Interesting sidenote: I noticed while watching the pencil tests over the end credits that you can see several sequences that didn't make the final cut -- a scene with Porky as a policeman (?) talking to Speedy; a scene with Pepe Le Pew romancing another hapless female cat; etc. A reason to look forward to the DVD.)
The characterization here is quite interesting. I've never seen an attempt to merge the two versions of Daffy's personality before (the pre-war wacky comic hero Daffy with the post-war selfish comic foil Daffy), and for the most part it works quite well. The villains in the shorts are played as villains under ACME here, and while that ought to work better than "everyone's a friend" in Space Jam, it didn't quite sit right with me. In the shorts, the characters' motivations were clearly understood. I have no idea why any of the characters would be working for ACME, except that "everyone's a friend" of ACME.
While I don't claim to be a big fan of Brendan Fraser and Jenna Elfman, both of them hold their own against their animated counterparts, wisely playing their roles straight and letting the cartoons take care of the comedy. Ironically, while I used to think Steve Martin was watchable in just about anything, here he tries to "out-cartoon" the cartoons, and it's just embarrassing. Meanwhile, Joan Cusack is just as twitchy here as she was in VMC. I used to be happy to see her in a movie. What happened?
In conclusion, this is a movie with great intentions that seems to have gotten bogged down with its rushed production schedule and with too many fingers in the pot, creatively speaking. The ending of the movie, where all the Hollywood people happily collaborating hand in hand, stands in ironic contrast to all the finger-pointing that's gone on between the studio and the creative people since the movie came out, each trying to pass the blame.
There's a lot here to please WB animation fans. But it's not just coincidence that Roger Rabbit performed so much better than this one. Both movies had great animation and lots of cool character cameos. But with Roger Rabbit, they realized that the story WASN'T irrevelant. While they did an homage to 1940's cartoons on the animated side of things, they did an homage to 1940's film noir on the live-action side of things. The story was tightly knit, and built in suspense while we were enjoying the comedy of the cartoon action. Here, the plot is a pastiche of a thousand other lame recent special-effects laden buddy comedies. And the difference shows.
Worth checking out, but you don't need to make it a high priority on your list.
This movie is a weird hybrid. On the one hand, you have the Warner Bros. animated stuff, most of which works pretty well; on the other, you have the typical big bloated WB production of late that has a lame nonsencial plot and big special effects with no purpose behind them. (I think of Joel Schumaker's Batman movies, Wild Wild West, The Avengers, and League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. I don't know if that last one was actually Warner's/New Line or not, but it certainly fits the mold.) And you could even say there's a third movie going on: the Joe Dante Pays Tribute to All the Movies He Watched Growing Up film. While some of the references are fun for film buffs, Dante has featured cameos by a lot of these folks before; it's really beginning to feel like old hat.
There were absolutely no surprises in the plot. The setup for the climax was painfully obvious, so there was no payoff. I never believed for a second that Steve Martin's character could have any real threat against civilization. Even Danny DeVito's alien character in Space Jam had greater menace (though it wasn't hard to beat). Think of the original "Ghostbusters" -- even in a broad comedy like that, where the actors are practically winking at the camera, the villians seem to pose a serious threat, and the suspense genuinely builds throughout the film.
Part of the problem is that the cartoons don't really seem to be there. I mean, even when they're thrown out of the car, they just appear back in the car in the very next scene. Yeah, cartoon characters have been doing that for years for humorous effect. But it gets to the point in this movie where it seems like nothing can affect the characters at all, so it doesn't really matter what happens to them (and hence, why should we care?). That's why the invention of "the Dip" was so brilliant in Roger Rabbit -- it gave the characters a necessary vulnerability, so we could actually be concerned about what happens to them.
The voices are great -- Joe Alaskey's Daffy is reliably good, and his Bugs is probably the best I've heard in years. All of the other characters sound very good except for Sam, who oddly enough is way off. (In Roger Rabbit, Alaskey did such a good Sam, I didn't even know it wasn't Mel.) Most of the cameos, animated and otherwise, are actually quite funny, though it doesn't help the movie build to anything.
The animation is gorgeous, and as noted by others, the Louvre scene is visually brilliant and quite funny. I could have done with a 7-minute short just on this, and forgotten about the rest of the movie.
(Interesting sidenote: I noticed while watching the pencil tests over the end credits that you can see several sequences that didn't make the final cut -- a scene with Porky as a policeman (?) talking to Speedy; a scene with Pepe Le Pew romancing another hapless female cat; etc. A reason to look forward to the DVD.)
The characterization here is quite interesting. I've never seen an attempt to merge the two versions of Daffy's personality before (the pre-war wacky comic hero Daffy with the post-war selfish comic foil Daffy), and for the most part it works quite well. The villains in the shorts are played as villains under ACME here, and while that ought to work better than "everyone's a friend" in Space Jam, it didn't quite sit right with me. In the shorts, the characters' motivations were clearly understood. I have no idea why any of the characters would be working for ACME, except that "everyone's a friend" of ACME.
While I don't claim to be a big fan of Brendan Fraser and Jenna Elfman, both of them hold their own against their animated counterparts, wisely playing their roles straight and letting the cartoons take care of the comedy. Ironically, while I used to think Steve Martin was watchable in just about anything, here he tries to "out-cartoon" the cartoons, and it's just embarrassing. Meanwhile, Joan Cusack is just as twitchy here as she was in VMC. I used to be happy to see her in a movie. What happened?
In conclusion, this is a movie with great intentions that seems to have gotten bogged down with its rushed production schedule and with too many fingers in the pot, creatively speaking. The ending of the movie, where all the Hollywood people happily collaborating hand in hand, stands in ironic contrast to all the finger-pointing that's gone on between the studio and the creative people since the movie came out, each trying to pass the blame.
There's a lot here to please WB animation fans. But it's not just coincidence that Roger Rabbit performed so much better than this one. Both movies had great animation and lots of cool character cameos. But with Roger Rabbit, they realized that the story WASN'T irrevelant. While they did an homage to 1940's cartoons on the animated side of things, they did an homage to 1940's film noir on the live-action side of things. The story was tightly knit, and built in suspense while we were enjoying the comedy of the cartoon action. Here, the plot is a pastiche of a thousand other lame recent special-effects laden buddy comedies. And the difference shows.
Worth checking out, but you don't need to make it a high priority on your list.
)
Mike Myers couldn't help it:The Cat gets hit by a muddy rake and insults it,"Dirty hoe." 
Yeah tee-hee; it's over right?
I thought the big "chase through the paintings" scene was funny. And the "Area 52" scene was kinda pointless. 
