COOL WORLD
Film comments by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1992 Mark R. Leeper
- The title has *got* to be a joke. This is the ugliest and most uncool world I can imagine. Gabriel Byrne must be mis-cast since he just does not seem freak-o enough to have imagined this world. The parallel world would have anyone screaming to get out after fifteen minutes.
- The idea that comic artists are really seeing a parallel universe is an old one. I seem to remember in the 1960s they claimed that the current Flash lived in the same universe as the artists who drew the old Flash (the one with the Mercury helmet). but the old Flash was really in a parallel universe. And I'm pretty sure the idea goes at least as far back as 1930s fantasy.
- Cardboard scenery seems out of place. Cool World should be made of pure animation and live action. The cardboard scenery makes no sense.
- They seem to have made up the rules of the two universes as they went
along and failed to explain some. Why does Holli have clown flashes?
What does the spike of power have to do with any of this?
- There are a few clever little satires on other animated films and perhaps a good line or two, but the incoherent story just is not very interesting. It's a pity, since at least initially the concept seemed more complex and interesting than that of WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT.
- The pun on Holli Would is pretty lame. Why repeat it in all the ads?
- Harris in 1945 is seeing a world that is in a cartoon style that would not be invented for another twenty years. He would be used to animation of the Fleischer and Disney schools. That should make the Cool World seem even more alien to him.
- I give it a -1 on the -4 to +4 scale.
Mark R. Leeper
att!mtgzy!leeper
leeper@mtgzy.att.com
.
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