In the highly specialized world of liveaction-cartoon mixes a category which actually has over 100 entries to date! this high-octane treat is, depending on your POV, either one of the best or one of worst. Although I usually try, in my IMDb reviews, not to go head to head with other reviewers, in this case I want to draw the reader's attention to the earlier review posted here which insisted, absolutely and without wavering, that this was simply a ripoff of Roger Rabbit. THAT is a wonderful real-time example of why no one really gets this film. Let's compare and contrast, shall we? <more> On the one hand, in WKRR, you have one of the most tightly controlled Hollywood productions of all time, with none other than Robert Zemeckis, an A-lister, at the helm. The buzzword here, folks, is control. We may never know all the details of what happened during the shooting of WKRR -- one of my favourites, by the way -- but from history, we can safely draw two reliable conclusions. First, an excellent film resulted. Second, regardless of the first conclusion, no one in Hollywood was particularly interested in doing a sequel, and this is a town where, if someone's wedding footage looks especially promising, at least two agents will immediately start discussing "sequel." Which brings back to COOL WORLD. While I could list dozens of obvious "differences" between the two productions, I will list only one, and then rest my case. Bakshi. I say again, in case anyone missed it. Bakshi. The core difference between Zemeckis at the helm, and Bakshi, is that you hire the former, you unleash the latter. Honestly, you have to wonder if any of the suits had ever seen FRITZ before they greenlighted this deal? I totally love COOL WORLD, but I love it for the completely opposite reasons I love WKRR. ROGER RABBIT is a refined and polished production. COOL WORLD is insane. It should be shown in theatres with rubber walls. The core story is insane no spoilers -- but Bassinger does something no actress has done before or since, she sells "sexy" both in her live and animated versions and the animation is so intense that it should come with a warning about operating heavy machinery after you see it. Look, folks, Bakshi is the real deal, a creative genius who never seeks results, only possibilities. If you are fortunate enough to see this film more than once, and really watch the animation taking place in the corners of the frame -- not in the foreground! -- you will see things taking place you may wish you had never seen. And this tradition is not new, by the way. Around the WW2 period, the animators at Warner, to relieve tension, starting sticking odd cells in mainstream toons, and many were never discovered until much later. In the 60s a smart entrepreneur did a tour with reels of the "banned" Bugs Bunny cartoons! I said that critics either loved or hated COOL WORLD. I loved it. I think it will stand the test of time. <less> |