Cool World Review

Do you recall the film Who Framed Roger Rabbit, about people and cartoons interacting with each other? Imagine watching it after taking a massive injection of mind-altering drugs and you’d get Ralph Bakshi's 1992 head-trip known as "Cool World." Those familiar with Bakshi's work (Fire and Ice, Wizards) will know that odd, hyper-colorful animated opuses are right up his alley. Cool World, however, manages to descend to new depths of insanity, a feat which leaves the viewer both bemused and bewildered. Cool World opens with a young man from 1945 named Frank Harris (Brad Pitt) being forcibly pulled into the film's eponymous realm immediately following his mothers' death. The "Cool World" turns out to be a zany, nightmarish realm populated entirely by cartoons known as "doodles." Cut to the present day, where we meet comic book artist Jack Deebs (Gabriel Byrne), who is also pulled into the Cool World. Frank is soon on Jack's case, preventing him from forming a relationship with the voluptuous doodle Holli Would (Kim Basinger), spouting the immortal warning: "Noids do not have sex with doodles." The film is busy, and at all times the screen is clogged with cartoon animals and God knows what else clobbering each other senseless. It's easy to be overwhelmed by the films' aesthetic, and just as easy to be underwhelmed by the human element. The rotoscoping effects are done competently enough, but there's no real point to the film, it simply meanders around until reaching its conclusion. Coupled with Bakshi's trademark irreverence, you have yourself a real monster of a film. Despite this, the doodles' voices are rendered well enough, with veteran voice actors like Maurice LaMarche and Charlie Adler rounding out the cast. Overall, Cool World isn't so much "cool" as it is lukewarm.