Cool World (1992)

There are people who fantasise about having sex with Disney heroines and/or Wonder Woman; from the evidence presented here, I would say that Ralph Bakshi is among them. Note that I said, "from the evidence presented here". I'll be the first to admit it's not very good evidence. "Cool World" is badly organised, devoid of passion, and just plain dull. It certainly doesn't FEEL like any kind of window into Bakshi's soul, or anyone else's.

Here's the scenario. There are two worlds: cool world, which is animated, and our own world, which isn't. They exist in some kind of unstable equilibrium which can be disrupted with disastrous, but unspecified, consequences, if - get this for a lark - a person from one world has sex with a person from the other. (Is this like "Species", or what?) The central cartoonist character thus spends most of the time on the verge of having sex with the animated Holli Wood. That's the scenario. (No, it really is.) The PLOT, on the other hand, is anyone's guess.

Many of the sets consist of cardboard cut-outs filmed precisely head on, so as to look like cartoon backgrounds but allow actors to walk through them. A great visual idea, huh? Well, it seems that Bakshi didn't think any further than that; for, as if there weren't enough problems already, you can tell that the actors are walking around very gingerly indeed, obviously aware that their slightest movement might case bits of furniture to wobble or fall over. As for Holli herself - she just doesn't do it for me, I'm afraid. Her Saturday-morning temptress look has straight-jacketed her animators, and she's so sexy-by-the-numbers that she isn't sexy at all. The rest of the film is painfully clumsy and dull and she could easily have been the best thing in it. She isn't.

Fmovies: Ralph Bakshi. The very name conjures up such successes and ground-breaking movies as "Fritz the Cat", "Heavy Traffic", the taboo-shattering "Coonskin" and even later triumphs as "American Pop". He even made good in re-animating cartoon versions of "Spider-Man" and "Mighty Mouse". I even remember the funny characters he created for that video for The Rolling Stones' "Harlem Shuffle".

So... why did his usual command of the medium slide down so much in quality with "Cool World"?

We all know what Bakshi is capable of. That he allowed something so slip-shod to be released without any re-tooling is shameful. With a surer touch and better script, this could have been a latter-day success story for him.

Instead, Bakshi shows as much uncertainty in his live-action direction as he does his animation here: none of the characters have much charisma, personality or reason to be given screen time.

Rather than that, what you have is a sad, cynical exercise to cash-in on the animation craze that was rightfully set off with "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" in 1990. Yes, cash-in; you heard me. Something so slapped-together and ungainly as to have cartoon characters simply run across the screen without announcement just to keep the audience off-guard is saying something, and it's not something nice.

What actors like Kim Basinger, Gabriel Byrne and Brad Pitt are doing in this is anyone's guess, unless Bakshi is just a master pitch-man. But even their scenes, animated or not, add next to nothing. And that's sad seeing, under certain circumstances, they have all done great things before and since - though, admittedly, it's hard to imagine Kim as an Oscar-winner after watching her gallivant around in a school-girl skirt and a Barbie-voice.

SO many scenes are either too short or go on and on and on without a sign of actually being about anything (like the night club scene - Frank Sinatra Jr??!). Someone must have REALLY wanted to rush this film through badly, allowing a product so obviously unfinished as this to be unleashed on the unsuspecting movie-going public at large. It's typical of Hollywood, but nothing that should be allowed for anyone the likes of Bakshi and company (SHOULD BE, that is).

Someday, maybe Bakshi will take this film, redo it and re-release it with the bad and unfinished scenes either removed, repaired or made more coherent, and he'll have his renaissance yet. But so far, this "Cool World" is set on quick thaw.

One star, some of the animation is indeed well-done and the vast cityscape of the "Cool World" is fascinating. If only something else as interesting had happened around it.

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? 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.

Cool World fmovies. '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).

As an animator, I have a thing for movies where real people and cartoons collide, so I decided to watch this film and after wards I thought it was a really good movie. First off, the animation is great. The characters are likable and fun to see on screen, and the whole idea of the movie is interesting. Though some of the acting is bad, and the plot isn't fully explained, and the ending is a little anti-climactic, the rest of the film makes up for it. I also enjoyed the sub-plot of the film, and Holli Would's dancing (thought it was obviously rotoscoped). But overall I really do believe this is an underrated film, because it contains the sexiest cartoon ever made: Holli Would. I'd recommend this film to a friend, and watch it the second time. It really is a film you'd remembered.

Animated films and cartoons have always been looked upon as an art form that caters primarily to a younger audience. Though this may be an unfair assessment to make, it is a logical one, since the child-friendly Walt Disney Company has dominated the animated film industry right from its inception after introducing the world to Mickey Mouse in 1928. After that, there has only been a handful of daring artists who have tried to disengage the squeaky-clean stereotype that animated films had since been branded with. Ralph Bakshi was such a man.

In 1972, Bakshi wrote and directed FRITZ THE CAT, a full-length animated feature film that touted a self-imposed X-rating and worldwide critical acclaim. Exactly twenty years later, Bakshi would go on to direct COOL WORLD, his sixth and most recent adult-oriented animated film to date.

On its own, the artwork and animation in COOL WORLD is excellent. The girls are sexy, the villains are ugly, and the backdrops have a surreal, almost psychedelic quality to them. The use of rotoscoping (still a relatively new technology at the time) to fluidly illustrate some of the more complex human movements was a wise choice, making the animated `Doodles' seem all the more lifelike. The animators went to great lengths to make their characters' interactions with live actors and actual scenery seem genuine. Many subtle touches, like the cartoons casting real shadows in the Humanoid world, and the direct eye contact between the Noids and the Doodles, were added to enhance the believability of these otherwise unbelievable situations.

Still, despite the great animation and the artists' valiant efforts at making the two-dimensional animation intermingle with our three-dimensional universe, the movie's visuals, while very impressive, are ultimately ineffectual. No matter how well these images are drawn, their lack of depth makes the contact with the live actors seem awkward and even distracting at times. Granted, they did the best they could at combining two very different mediums, but no amount of detail can shake the feeling that you're merely watching a 2-D overlay atop of a 3-D film, rather than 2-D characters within a 3-D film as was intended.

The high point of the film, I think, was Kim Basinger's portrayal of Holli Would as she fervently attempts to adjust to Humanoid life. Basinger is suitably perky as the deviant Miss Would, and did an outstanding job emulating the actions and mannerisms of her cartoon counterpart. Basinger succeeds at making Holli's reactions to the Las Vegas public both hilarious and embarrassing for the viewer, a feat which is probably not easy to pull off.

Gabriel Byrne's performance as Jack Deebs is another example of fine acting in this film. Byrne's character, although probably not as scared or confused by his predicament as he should have been, is portrayed convincingly, and there's enough of a well-developed backstory to accept his antisocial attitude and somewhat pessimistic outlook on life. Byrne also handles Deebs's gradual transition from calm and collected to a state of panic and exasperation exceptionally well, and his sheepishness as he futilely attempts to disassociate himself with Holli and her embarrassingly eccentric behavior is another high point in the film.

Brad Pitt plays his role as Detective Frank Harris in typical Pitt fashion. This is not to say he did a bad job, but his performances tend to be bland and unmemorable, and this movie is no exception. Even as