Reeling Backward: "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" (1988)

I'm always curious about how the reputations of a film rise and fall with the passing of years. When "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" came out in 1988, it was heralded as a spectacular artistic and technical achievement. A quarter-century on, it's become a pretty forgotten piece of cinematic history.

I remember Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert raving about the stunning combination of live-action and animated characters on their eponymous television show -- how convincing the juxtaposition of cartoon characters and real actors. Similarly, in the New York Times Janet Maslin gushed, "Although this isn't the first time that cartoon characters have shared the screen with live actors, it's the first time they've done it on their own terms and make it look real."

Though I'm sure it looked fresh and exciting back in '88, the film hasn't aged well. The craftsmanship that seemed cutting edge 25 years ago looks positively hokey now. Considering the 'Disney Renaissance' that began the next year with "A Little Mermaid," or in contrast to Pixar's computer-animated films that started coming out just a few years later, "Roger Rabbit" registers now as little more than a minor way station on the way to grander achievements.

I think what seemed groundbreaking back then was that the humans seemed to actually interact with the denizens of Tunetown, the fictional Hollywood enclave where cartoon characters live (and seemingly spawn). So when roughhouse private detective Eddie Valiant (Bob Hoskins) grabs Roger in a crushing grip, his meaty fist actually seems to be enclosed around the rabbit's scrawny neck ... sort of, anyway.

Coming before green screens and CGI, the live actors plied their trade on a regular sound stage, with props and puppets standing in for the cartoon characters -- who would be painstakingly drawn in during 14 months of post-production. Robert Zemeckis directed the film, but Richard Williams supervised the animated sequences.

Supposedly, Charles Fleischer -- the voice of Roger -- even read his lines off-camera wearing a ridiculous rabbit get-up, so Hoskins and the actors would have something to relate to.

Roger himself is like an amalgam of different bits 'n' pieces from the golden age of animation -- a little Bugs Bunny, Goofy's fashion sense, Droopy the Dog's patch of red hair, Porky Pig's speech impediment and the hyperactive schizoid personality of the Road Runner on acid. The overall effect is entertaining, if a bit synthesized.

It's notable that Roger Rabbit, while appearing in a few more short films to capitalize on the movie's success, pretty much died off as a mainstay in the Disney oeuvre.

The other most notable toon character from the film is Jessica Rabbit, gifted with Kathleen's husky sex appeal and the body of a Barbie doll after spending a couple of years under the care of a Brazilian plastic surgeon. I personally never saw what the big deal was with her, even after the revelation of a few supposed frames of a naked Jessica that appear subliminally.

But then, "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" was always a challenging mix of kiddie and adult material. The movie contains a few swear words, but was more controversial for risque bits like the little baby with the sexual mores of an aging lothario.

The story, based on a book by Gary K. Wolf, is pretty spare -- film noir meets Daffy Duck.

The head of the biggest cartoon studio is killed, with Roger fingered for the crime. Evil Judge Doom is the heavy, working to suppress the mogul's will leaving Toontown to the toons, so he can instead destroy the city's mass transit system and substitute a freeway instead. Eddie, who has an abiding hatred of toons after one killed his brother, is roped into helping Roger out.

Despite the simplicity of the plot, the film contains a number of clever conceits. The first is the notion that cartoon characters are not imaginary creations but sentient beings, who live to act screwy and make people laugh. Thus, Bugs and Mickey Mouse and a thousand other iconic characters are really actors who star in cartoons, suffering pratfalls and hammer squishings and other hilarious hijinks since they're more or less indestructible.

Sounds like they've got a lousy union.

(Steven Spielberg was reportedly key in convincing so many of the entities that owned the rights to these characters to let them appear in cameos.)

Doom has found a way to permanently destroy toons, melting them in his horrible acidic Dip. It's unclear exactly what the Judge's judicial duties actually consist of, since he mostly just rides around with his weasel henchmen putting the squeeze on toons and any humans who help them out.

It was one of Christopher Lloyd's most enjoyable roles, during a decade when he occuppied a rarefied perch as mainstream filmdom's most versatile character actor. His off-kilter line readings and creepy/funny screen presence made Judge Doom in many ways more enduring the Roger Rabbit.

"Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" is still a good movie, though seen today it clearly does not belong among the animation giants that came after, nor among the best comedies of that era. Mostly, it's a confectionery treat of live-action and cartoons mashed together in a way that's fun, if not entirely convincing.

3 stars out of four

Reeling Backward: "Zulu Dawn" (1979)

About a year and a half ago I wrote about "Zulu," a 1964 movie that marked Michael Caine's film debut, while noting that it wasn't the one I remembered seeing as a child. That was "Zulu," a 1979 film about a different battle in the same Anglo-Zulu War, so I thought it was about time I caught up with it to see how it jibed with my memory.

"Zulu Dawn" is in essence a prequel, portraying the historic Battle of Isandlwana in 1879, while "Zulu" is about the smaller Battle of Rorke's Drift, which took place a few hours later on the same day. If "Zulu" is a heroic tale about a small band of British soldiers repelling a horde of Zulus, then "Zulu Dawn" is a cautionary tale about a modern army being routed by a "primitive" army.

I was surprised by how much I remembered about the later film, and how much I didn't. The key sequence that stayed with my young mind was the unctuous quartermaster (Peter Vaughan) refusing to dole out ammunition without proper procedure, making the men stand in line for bullets even as the battle lines have exhausted their supply and are being massacred by the Zulu impis, or warriors.

For me it encapsulated everything about the downside of the military mindset, which often puts rules and regulations above the very lives of the soldiers.

I'd also had a pretty clear memory for the battle scenes, with a lot of running to and fro and impaling with spears. The violence is a lot more graphic than "Zulu," but still subdued enough to earn a PG rating from the MPAA.

The Zulus take heavy losses, but ultimately break the British lines and handed the English their first major defeat at the hands of a native army. The idea of warriors so freely sacrificing themselves to achieve victory seemed alien to me when I first saw it. In Western cinema and schools of thought, we are taught that the culture that embraces suicidal attacks is the inferior one, since they place less value on human life.

Many other things about the movie had escaped my recollection. I didn't remember that Burt Lancaster starred in the picture, playing the one-armed Col. Durnford -- well, he still had his left arm, but it was paralyzed and useless to him) -- a veteran cavalryman whose advice to the supremely confident commander, Lord Chelmsford (Peter O'Toole, whom I also didn't remember), is ignored, leading to catastrophe.

I had a vague notion of a gruff sergeant who commands his soldiers with an iron fist but also harbors deep affection for them, but back then had no idea who Bob Hoskins was. It was one of his early film roles, and I can't believe he didn't make a deeper impression. Perhaps it's because this sort of character seems to exist in virtually every war movie.

Likewise I didn't recognize Ronald Lacey as Norris Newman, a prominent British journalist who shadows Chelmsford and offers barely-concealed criticism of him, his motivations for starting this war and the way he is conducting it. Of course, it would be two more years before Lacey became cult-famous for playing the piggish Nazi villain Toht in "Raiders of the Lost Ark."

Like "Zulu," I was again impressed that the Zulu were not portrayed as savage brutes, but clever warriors. Indeed, it is the overriding historical opinion that Chelmsford and his commanders were completely out-strategized by their Zulu counterparts. Chelmsford even refused to entrench his camps by laagering his wagons, or encircling them into a defensive unit.

The two "Zulu" movies are tied together by the contributions of Cy Endfield, who co-wrote both movies and directed the first one. Alas, Douglas Hickox doesn't prove as skilled behind the camera in "Zulu Dawn," which comes across as a simple two-act play: Prelude to war, and the war. The former is concerned with a lot of British derring-do and priggish behavior. The latter is the real movie, battle scenes with a lot of kinetic energy but not as much emotional punch as they should have.

2.5 stars out of four

Review: "Made in Dagenham"

Sort of a British "Norma Rae," "Made in Dagenham" is a well-acted tale about female auto workers demanding equal pay in the late 1960s. It's a classic underdog story whose outcome is never in doubt, where the lines between the good guys and the bad are practically marked onscreen in highlighter pen.

Sally Hawkins plays the Sally Field role of the low-key worker who rises up to become a respected leader of the union. As Rita O'Grady, Hawkins has a slightly awkward sort of beauty, the sort of woman who has to be told what a gem she is before she believes it herself. Hawkins used this quality to full effect in "Happy-Go-Lucky" a couple of years ago.

Director Nigel Cole brings the same sort of energy he did to 2003's "Calendar Girls" about another group of plucky women who discover they're a lot more capable than anyone gave them credit for. William Ivory's script, though, follows the diagram of a screenwriting class to a T, so we know the progression of the gals' struggle before it happens.

For example, Rita's husband Eddie (Daniel Mays) will be fully supportive at first, getting a kick out of seeing his wife photographed in newspapers and on the telly. But then there will be growing discord as he's forced to take up more of the cooking and cleaning at home, followed by a big spat when his own job is imperiled, culminating in rapprochement where he tells her how proud he is.

The story also tends to treat the other women as scenery rather than distinct individuals. There's the slutty one (Andrea Riseborough), the cute one who wants to be a model (Jaime Winstone), and so forth. Only Connie (Geraldine James), the steadfast older shop steward, is given anything like another dimension, including some trouble on the home front.

I didn't care for the wife of one of the company managers (Rosamund Pike), who befriends Rita without even realizing they live in separate camps. An educated, smart woman who resents having to bury her talents beneath her husband's, she secretly eggs the working girls on. The whole thing is a little too pat.

The history lesson aspect of the film is certainly engaging, though. In the 1960s Ford was the largest auto manufacturer in Europe, employing some 40,000 workers in England alone. The gals of the machinists union in Dagenham, some 187 of them, were classified as unskilled laborers and paid considerably less than their male counterparts -- quite often, their own husbands and brothers.

Bob Hoskins plays Albert, a union organizer impressed by the gumption of the women during a relatively minor disagreement with management. He encourages Rita to strike for equal pay -- much to the consternation of the union bosses.

Miranda Richardson plays Barbara Castle, the first (and still only) female British secretary of state, who was tasked with tamping down the machinist strike and keeping Ford happy.

Richard Schiff shows up as a Ford exec sent over from the States to twist some arms. He bellows and rants: We can't pay these women the same as men, because then women all over the world will want the same thing!

Of course, Ford eventually acquiesced and become something of a pioneer on gender equality, and even cooperated with the making of this film. So even the bad guys turn out to be decent blokes.

Sally Hawkins is eminently watchable, but it's too bad "Made in Dagenham" feels like it rolled off another kind of assembly line.

2 stars out of four

Review: "A Christmas Carol"

"A Christmas Carol" is a technological marvel, an animated film that is absolutely breathtaking in its attention to detail, and in the depth and beauty of its images. Unfortunately, it also has little reason for existing beyond these technical aspects.

Do audiences really need an umpteenth cinematic version of Charles Dickens' classic story? This is, after all, a franchise that has been translated dozens of times on film and television, including multiple animated editions.

Heck, the Muppets, Mickey Mouse, Sesame Street, Flintstones, Mr. Magoo and even Barbie have tackled Dickens' novella.

Robert Zemeckis, the master filmmaker behind "Forrest Gump" and "Back to the Future," adds nothing beyond fancy flourishes to the morality tale about a miser who learns the value of life, and thereby the true meaning of Christmas.

A few years ago, Zemeckis famously swore off live-action films to concentrate on photo-realistic computer-generated animation. His first two efforts, "The Polar Express" and "Beowulf," were well-intentioned and often mesmerizing, but also contained bouts of silliness (think Angelina Jolie with a tail).

"Christmas Carol" doubles down on the silly, with the hyper Jim Carrey providing the voices (and motions) of Ebenezer Scrooge and all the ghosts.

And Zemeckis adds a heavy dollop of action sequences designed to make the movie more commercially viable to audiences with children.

It's very easy to say Charles Dickens might have dreamed up scenes where Ebenezer Scrooge is shot halfway to the moon on a rocket, or shrunk down to the size of a mouse and chased by a team of hellfire steeds, if only he had been alive during a time when such depictions were possible. It's also a cop-out.

"Scrooged" from 1988 already ably translated "Carol" to a modern setting, and used special effects to liven up the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future. Zemeckis retains the grubby antique 19th-century setting but uses cutting-edge animation and 3-D technology to achieve it.

The result is stale but annoyingly flashy, like musty architecture with ill-placed modern gilding.

It's also odd that Zemeckis retained a lot of the 1843-era stilted English, such as Scrooge's pronouncement upon seeing his childhood home, "I was bred here."

Now, to the ghosts. Conceptually, they're 1-for-3.

The Ghost of Christmas Present is depicted as a giant, bearded, laughing man, a Dionysian figure (who closely resembles the book's original drawing). The scene where the ghost ages and meets his demise -- since he lives in the present, his lifespan lasts only a day -- is both thrilling and creepy. (Although his strange pronouncement about men of the cloth left the audience scratching its collective head.)

The Ghost of Christmas Past, though, is a chirpy-voiced floating ball of flame. In my mind, I instantly dubbed, and dismissed, him as "Match-head." Ghost of Christmas Future is merely an inky wraith seen only in the shadows.

The supporting performances are a nice mix -- I particularly liked Gary Oldman as Scrooge's long-suffering clerk Bob Cratchit, whom he gives a shy sort of grace. (Oldman also plays Jacob Marley and Tiny Tim.)

In the end, I'm not really sure who this new version of "A Christmas Carol" is for. Great-looking but uninspired, it's a shiny new toy that can only do old tricks.

2.5 stars