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New Top 350 Entry: #9
A cartoon noir riddled with nonstop slapstick antics and old-fashioned hand-drawn characters of the 1940's, Who Framed Roger Rabbit is a film that I have been meaning to see for the longest time, yet for some reason I never felt the desire to get around to actually watching the entire film. I had seen about 20 minutes of the ending years ago, and so I already knew how it would end, and yet I wanted to experience the entire film for myself.
Who Framed Roger Rabbit is one of Robert Zemeckis's most brilliant and original films (yes, I know it's based on a novel). The frequent appearances of such classic characters as Daffy Duck, Betty Boop, and Mickey Mouse were brilliant little nuggets that added a trivial sense of realism to the film that weren't really necessary, but amazing on their own.
Bob Hoskins seems perfectly in place as Eddie Valiant, the cartoon-hating private detective, who emulates every well-known noir detective in Hollywood history. I never thought much of him after seeing him in the awful Super Mario Bros. adaptation, but his performance in this film makes me completely forget that he was even in that rubbish to begin with. Christopher Lloyd, a Zemeckis regular, plays a creepy and formidable villain in his "Judge Doom" character, and his presence is ultimately commanding whenever he is on screen. I don't know exactly what it is about him, but Christopher Lloyd has some magic spark in his acting from his best-known works that I just can't seem to find in any other actors nowadays.
Everything about this film is just perfect to me. The characters, the story, the acting, the comedy, the classic cartoon references- everything just seems to be perfectly on point to me. Hoskins himself takes part in some of the slapstick antics that hallmark the best classic cartoon shows, and the cartoon characters themselves are so unfathomably memorable. The story perfectly emulates the best parts of classic film noir, and there's even some well-placed action and suspense to complement it. Who Framed Roger Rabbit is one of my favorite films of the 20th century, and I can't wait to watch this over and over again. It's a film truly deserving of many, many rewatches to appreciate its full value.