From the far reaches of the Milky Way Galaxy, It's Retro Nerd Girl with a film review for you.
Today I'll be reviewing the movie Cool World released in 1992.
Starring:
Gabriel Byrne, Kim Basinger, Brad Pitt
Directed by:
Ralph Bakshi
Genre:
Animation, Comedy, Fantasy
Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) Rating:
PG-13
Budget:
$30,000,000 (estimated)
Current IMDb Rating When Reviewed:
4.8
The Synopsis is:
Detective Frank Harris is trapped in a cartoon dimension for 47 years until he discovers that he must stop an ambitious animated woman, Holli Would from selfishly, but unintentionally destroying the universe.
Story:
The story began as a twinkle in Ralph Bakshi’s eye. He was once an animator of cute kiddie cartoons like Mighty Mouse, who became director of mature themed animated and live-action films mainly in the 1970s and early 80’s.
His original idea for the film was being a "hard-R" animated/live action horror film about an underground cartoonist who fathered an illegitimate half-real/half-cartoon daughter, who hates herself for what she is and tries to kill him.
Wow, what a concept! It was such a good one that Paramount was smart enough to scoop it up right away. Imagine a film that could have been the eccentric style of Heavy Metal (1981), and the imaginative horror unpredictability of Nightmare on Elm Street (1984).
Please someone, make this movie!
For a while there, it seemed as if Ralph Bakshi was going to have his movie. A script and a wonderful story board was created for the film.
Frank Mancuso, Jr., son of then Paramount president Frank Mancuso, Sr., was brought in to produce the film since having a long career producing horror films, such as the Friday the 13th franchise. Who else should do this project.
However, Mancuso Jr. was at a stage in his career that he wanted to move away from being known as the horror producer and had the film completely re-written in secret.
When Ralph Bakshi was given the new script he got into a physical fight with Mancuso, Jr. and fists went flying! Initially, Bakshi wanted to leave the project, but Paramount threatened him with a lawsuit if he refused to complete the film.
Well you would think that he would be given reign after that to really put his stamp on the film. However, the studio insisted on having specific actors in certain roles because of their box office draw, instead of letting the director choose the best actor for the role.
One such box office draw was Kim Basinger who voiced Holli Would and played her live action character. She became vocal about wanting the film to be shown to sick children in hospitals about halfway through the production.
Being a big star at the time, the studio agreed, but not just because she said it, but because it could make them more money to have the film seen by a wider audience and with the success of Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (1988), they wanted to bank off that audience. They spent many efforts in editing to eventually get the ratings board to give the film a PG-13.
Just imagine being an incredible artist and creator like Ralph Bakshi at that point in time, coming up with what could have been his most incredible and compelling masterpiece and then have it deformed into an abomination right in front of his face as he was forced to see it out until the end.
To me, that would be the definition of pure torture.
Although he was initially and upset at the chain of events, in a more recent interview in 2017 in CartoonBrew.com, Ralph seemed to have a very humble outlook on his experience saying, “that’s how studios work” and he’s been very lucky with the freedom he had in the business and now he’s glad he worked on it with so many animators.
Mancuso, Jr., said that in the changes to the story he wanted to produce a film "about what happens when someone creates a world, becomes defined by it, and then can't escape. A film about being trapped by your own creation."
It’s not a completely bad concept either. This was probably reflective of his own feelings to want to get away from making films in the horror genre and if explored a little deeper could have been interesting.
However, this premise is not reflected in the story at all. The film heavily focuses on tempering the greed and ambition of a gorgeously drawn female cartoon, Holli Would, who has been compared to and resembles, Jessica Rabbit. They are both exaggeratedly drawn and work / hang out at nightclubs.
There is the detective, Frank and there is Holli’s creator, Jack Deebs, who are in the mix. They have detailed backstories, but none of it has any bearing on the actual story. The main pulse of this narrative is Holli Would dancing and tempting the audience. That very well might be all of the entertainment needed for many people.
Although the film is a spectacle of visual storytelling notes, the actual story is a result of all of the un-unified actions going on during the pre-production and editing decisions to piece together everyone’s ideas into a PG-13 rated film.
Pacing:
At 1 hour and 42 minutes the pacing is decent.
Challenge:
Cool world is a cartoon world filled with drawings created by comic artists, but at the time of this story it is Jack Deebs. Dr. Whiskers from cool world has created a MacGuffin called the spike that creates a dimensional travel between Cool World and the real world.
In the film humans are referred to as noids and cartoons are referred to as doodles.
One of Jack Deebs’ characters, Holly Would
Is a dancer at a club in Cool World and has been watching Marilyn Monroe movies. She wants what Marilyn has in the movies. As a noid, she thinks that she can have all of that and more in the real world to enjoy fame, money, and power. Apparently, doodles that have sex with noid can become noids and Jack Deebs, her creator is the answer to all of that.
It’s a reasonable plan and she executes it efficiently, masterminding her perfect escape.
Somehow she is able to drag Jack Deebs into the cartoon world to seduce in order to get what she wants. They call it a mind slip in the film. Noids can also enter through dreams.
Holly Would is a visually fascinating character, that the film spends a great deal of time focusing on. In the original script, Holli Would was named Debbie Dallas, after the famous adult film Debbie Does Dallas (1978). She was bluntly intended to be the sex symbol of the film, the femme fatale, if you will and most of all she is defiant. When she is told to keep her legs crossed, she is certain to do the complete opposite.
And she works well as such creating a lot of interesting interaction between her and the male characters in the film. Her tagline is, “Holli Would if she could…”
But being ambitious and making an escape is not a horrible thing. Why is she the challenge in the film?
When she gets to the real world it seems all of her plans get sidelined when she wants to stabilize her human form permanently and it seems as if her plan was not fully thought out, making her a kind of accidental villain by the end.
Empathy:
Although there are many characters in the film for you to follow.
The film starts in 1945 Las Vegas, World War II veteran Frank Harris is transported to Cool World. He has been in Cool World for 47 years and has not aged a day since he arrived. Somehow along the way he becomes the local detective who seems to be the only one who knows the rules of Cool World as he tries to protect the balance of the entire known universe.
Holli tried to seduce Frank, being a noid who could help her become a noid. However, he’s not available because he is dating a doodle by the name of Lonette, who works as a server at a bar. Remind you of any other two characters (Eddie Valiant and Dolores from Who Framed Roger Rabbit?)
Their love story is a side plot point revolving around the fact that they cannot consummate their love for one another which leads to more than one scene obsessively talking about it.
On appearances Jack Deebs seems to have little to no personality as he just seems speechless and shocked all of the time, but it makes sense for his character. Everything is happening to him and he is the one person that doesn’t have a clue what’s going on, like the audience.
In the real world Jack Deebs is released from jail after serving time for killing a man he found in bed with his now ex-wife. He made a big mistake and he is struggling to get his life back together. I can understand how that could keep him as a reserved personality. His art is where he expresses himself best.
Seeing all of his creations come to life in Cool World is a dream come true for him. Holli asks him, “this is your idea of heaven, right?” referring those dark scary landscapes. It makes it easy to see why Holli would want to leave because she feels trapped by his vision.
In the real world Jack has a neighbor who is a big fan of his, Jennifer. She helps him out near the end of the film and at first you think she could be something real for Jack to connect with. She helps Jack, but she is only a placeholder for screen time and pretty much walks off screen empty handed by the end.
Technical:
The technical aspects is another one of these films that is a big mixed bag.
The live action cartoon blended genre of films was not a breakthrough in this film because it was done better in Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) and earlier used in Mary Poppins 1964.
But to me, it is always fun to see it and I am not a complete snob about it.
Ralph Bakshi said that he had a lot of fun with his animation team and even at one point told them to do whatever they wanted because they didn’t have a screenplay to work from. This was the one place he couldn’t be controlled. He told them, "Do a scene that's funny, whatever you want to do!"
The result was Cool World’s background characters parodying Fleischer Studios, Disney and Warner Bros. cartoon characters with folly and in some cases mature violence, with a concentration of comedy. It’s the main cause of the tonal dissonance in the film.
The best animation was reserved for Holli since she was the focus of the film. Jenine Jennings’ live performance was rotoscoped for both Holli and Lonette while the characters were drawn on top of it. The care to detail really shows in those two characters especially, because they were to be the love interests for the two main characters.
Spain Rodriguez provided the artwork for Jack Deebs’ drawings in the film to give him a layer of artistic depth. I loved seeing his work in the film.
Having a very limited budget, the sets were creatively done with painted plywood based upon enlargements of designer Barry Jackson's paintings to look like cartoon environments. I really liked that effect in the film and it was something that Bakshi had always wanted to do on screen.
One of the most outstanding features of the film were the wonderful landscapes provided for Cool World, with surrealistic winding buildings, curved structures, faces embedded into Gothic architecture, haunting skyscrapers, glowing eyes in the dark and unusual color schemes. It all had a very hyper realistic cityscape feel to it and I just loved it.
Despite the film's less than stellar performance at the box office, its soundtrack gained critical acclaim and popularity which consists of electronic dance and rock songs by David Bowie, Moby, Neil Tennant and Mark Isham, the film's composer.
I just loved all that great throbbing dance music jamming in the background.
Performances:
I liked Kim Basinger in this as Holli Would. Her voice was great for the character and she looked the part as the live action character.
Gabriel Byrne did his best with his character, Jack Deebs. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much to do but react to the other characters.
Brad Pitt also did his best with Detective Frank Harris putting as much heart and charm into his moments on screen. Though, there is one scene between him and Gabriel which was the only one scene the two actors really get to act and they are doing it as if the Oscars depend on it.
Best:
The best part of the film was the idea. It’s a great idea.
The Ending:
Holli suddenly becomes obsessed with getting the spike and unleashes the cartoon world to the real world. The whole scene has a very Ghostbusters feel to it with streams of cartoon matter floating across the city invading it, and comical incidences melding the two worlds.
It’s fun and exciting, but it ends a little lackluster. Ultimately, Holli is stuck in Cool World and forced into a relationship with Jack, who has transformed into a hyper stylized corny superhero.
It just seemed like an unsatisfying ending for Jack being stuck in a dysfunctional relationship with Holli, mind you against her will. He lost his humanity by the end, which is kinda sad.
Wish List:
I wish that the film was created that way that Ralph Bakshi envisioned it.
I wish that the film had more unifying content and less inconsistencies across the board with the visuals in Cool World. There were so many goofy characters randomly carrying on in front of dramatic scenes, inconsistency in backgrounds and rather unsuccessful experiments with the cartoon and real life performance and set design at times.
One of the glaring issues were the lack of shadows during the interactions between real and cartoon characters. It just didn’t feel as if the cartoons were there. Here’s an example of what I mean.
I wish the character visuals were more like the concept art for the film. In Jack Deebs’ home he has a mural of art which I thought would have been so awesome to have in the film.
I absolutely adore the visual characterization of Holli as well as her ambition but I wished she was smarter in order to make her a real threat.
She wants the spike to remain human, but when she gets it, she turns back into a doodle permanently. What was the point. It only brings Cool World to our world. And maybe she doesn't know that, but upon discovering that, it would have been chilling if she had a master plan.
Enjoyment:
One of the biggest mistakes people made about the film was thinking that this was for kids based on the rating and the marketing. But truthfully, this was too mature for them. For older audiences, it just wasn’t edgy enough. Sadly, for longtime Bakshi fans, this was a let down and unfortunately, this was Ralph Bakshi last feature.
In my opinion it was a pretty interesting film with some of the most imaginative background visuals. It doesn’t go down as my favorite, but it has an interesting style melding the immature mind and the mature mind without apology for being what it is and that is what I enjoy about it most.
My Rating:
6.8
That sums up my review. I hope you liked it. This is Retro Nerd Girl signing off! Take care movie lovers! I'm off to the next review!
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