COOL WORLD
A film review by Craig Good
Copyright 1992 Craig Good
COOL WORLD is the latest effort from Ralph Bakshi, the man who directed such seminal works as FRITZ THE CAT, WIZARDS, and THE LORD OF THE RINGS. One thing you can say for Ralph is that his directorial style reflects his own personality. Trying to hold a conversation with Bakshi has been likened to listening to someone spin the tuning dial on a radio.
This movie has all the continuity of a fever dream. It's a confused mish-mash of random, poorly-animated mayhem and wholesale rotoscope over occasionally stunning background paintings. The primary appeal this film would seem to have is to the kind of desperate, hormone-ravaged teens who are sorry that Jessica Rabbit never appeared nude in PLAYBOY. While the over-rendered Holli Would never doffs her skimpies, Ralph compensates by peppering the film with plenty of scatological references. "Subtle" is not in this man's vocabulary.
Just because the movie is dreadful doesn't mean there aren't a few good moments. Some of the animation, especially at the end of the film, is quite good -- maybe about two minutes total -- and the large background paintings in Cool World are way cool. A pleasant surprise was that Kim Basinger actually makes a very professional voice actress (well, given the limitations of the character).
The trouble is that none of the actors are given anything to work with. There is nothing to explain what any of them are doing. There are no consistent rules governing the interaction between the 'Noids of the real world and the Doodles of the "cool world." Isolated bits of dialogue float in and out of focus while completely random acts of cartoon violence fill the foreground. COOL WORLD is one non-sequitur after another. The endless references to classic animated films, especially FANTASIA, only succeed in making you wonder why you paid real money to sit in the theatre.
If you insist on seeing this movie, you probably will laugh several times. Some of those times may even be when Ralph wanted you to (there is a hilarious scene with a cute bunny shooting craps). But, if any of COOL WORLD survives in your memory, it'll likely leave a taste in your mouth to remind you of the last time you ate a whole jumbo bag of pork rinds.
--Craig good@pixar.com
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