WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT | A Forgotten Masterpiece | Movie Review (Spoiler-free)

WFRR is a mystery comedy film released in 1988 under Disney’s Touchstone banner. The film was a combination of animation and live-action and was based on the novel ‘Who Censored Roger Rabbit’ written by Gary K. Wolf in 1981.

It was directed by Robert Zemeckis and produced by Frank Marshall and Robert Watts with Steven Spielberg working as an executive producer. The movie made more than $350million at the box office over the budget of $70million becoming the highest grosser of the year 1988.

The film’s cast included Bob Hoskins (Eddy Valiant), Charles Fleischer (Roger Rabbit), Cristopher Lloyd (Judge Doom), Kathleen Turner (Jessica Rabbit), and Alan Tilvern (R.K. Maroon).

Plot

The film is set in 1947 in a world where toons actually exist. They live in ‘Toon Town’ and act their respective roles in different cartoon movies just like real human actors. The only difference is that they can’t die.

The film’s story revolves around Eddy Valiant (a private detective) and Roger Rabbit (a cartoon). Roger has been feeling upset about his wife Jessica Rabbit who’s suspected to be having an affair and due to this stress, Roger can’t concentrate on his work.

To sort this out, producer R.K. Maroon hires Eddy to investigate Jessica’s affair. Eddy readily discovers that Jessica’s been cheating Roger with Marvin Acme, the owner of Toon Town. When Roger finds out about this, his heart breaks into pieces. He loses his temper and says that ‘he would do anything to get his wife back’ and that ‘someone has instigated Jessica against him’.

The actual tragedy starts when the next morning Marvin’s dead body is found and Roger gets framed for his murder. Roger ends up with Eddy forcing him to take his case and save him from this false accusation. ‘Judge Doom’ is the one investigating Marvin’s murder case who has made a compound which he calls ‘The Dip’ that can actually KILL toons. When Eddy founds out about this he agrees to help Roger although he hates toons from the core of his heart.

Now Eddy has to investigate this critical case, save Roger from getting caught by Doom, and deal with Roger’s annoying bullshit all along.

Movie Analysis

Characters

The film is filled with references from WB and Disney’s old cartoons you would have surely seen as a child such as Daffy Duck, Bugs Bunny, Donald Duck, Road Runner, Yosemite Sam, Dumbo, Porky Pig, and many more. Most of them will be on the screen for just a short glimpse so make sure to give your attention while watching the film if you want to catch all of the references.

Of the main characters, Roger Rabbit has to be my favorite. To the film characters, he might sound annoying sometimes but as an audience, you’ll surely gonna love him. My favorite dialogue from Roger was,

“If you don’t have a good sense of humor, you’re better off dead”.

Of the supporting characters, ‘Benny The Cab’ (a taxi) is the one I truly loved. The guy enters as a savior of Eddy and Roger and totally nails every scene he’s in. Hats off to Charles Fleischer for his exquisite voice acting.

Animation

The film is a combination of Animation and live-action, which means that some characters are actual actors such as Eddy and Doom and some are animated cartoons such as Roger and Jessica.

Award-winning animator ‘Richard Williams’ was brought to be the director of the animation and he did tremendous work. The animation was lowkey the most difficult aspect in the making of the film as they had to combine the animation and live-action together.

The filmmakers first had to shoot all the scenes with just the human actors and toons were added later. While filming those scenes, voice actors were brought on the set to do the scenes with the human actors.

For the scenes where the toons were engaging with real-life things or props, mechanical devices were built that picked things up on the set. They can’t be seen on the screen because later they were covered by the animated characters.

Some puppeteers were also there to move certain props around the set with the help of wires making it appear as if those animated characters were right on the set.

Now to add the animated characters on the screen, every frame of live action was made into a still photograph and the animators had to draw those toons frame by frame on every photograph. And yes, no computers were used in this process and over 82,000 total frames (24 fps) were drawn in the making of ‘Who Framed Roger Rabbit’.

The work didn’t just end there. To make the animated characters more lifelike, the film footage was then sent to a visual effects company named ‘Industrial Light and Magic’ (the same guys who made Star Wars). There they added shading, shadows, and highlights to the animated characters to give them a three-dimensional look.

It was all the efforts of the special effects team, the puppeteers, and the ‘Light and Magic’ company that the toons came to life on screen.

Execution

The plot’s execution is at its very best. There was not a single part of the film that I didn’t enjoy. From the very start, the movie starts to make you laugh and never stops till the end.

Although it’s a PG13 film that might not be appropriate for some kids. But I think kids over 8 can truly enjoy the film and even if you’re an adult, you will fully enjoy the film as the story of the film is not predictable at all and I think it’s one of the best murder mystery films I’ve ever seen.

My Opinion

I didn’t watch the movie’s trailer before watching it so I didn’t really have a lot of idea about how the film’s gonna be. But from its background, I expected the film to be a good time killer that can be watched if you’ve nothing else to do. You know how the kids’ films are.

During watching the film, many things surprised me, especially Jessica Rabbit, I mean she was just… SOMETHING ELSE. Yeah I know she’s just a cartoon but… C’mon… there’s a thing called ‘Supernormal Stimuli’. If you don’t know what it is just google it.

Coming back to the topic. After watching the film I can say that this movie is worth every second you spend on it. There’s just one thing you need to do before watching it, take your ‘logic’ put it in a bottle and throw it in the deep sea. I hope you can understand that if toons are involved in the film then there won’t really be anything logical happening around. So just grab something to eat and enjoy the film like a kid and live your childhood again with your favorite cartoons.