Noir November: Cool World (1992)

Mixing live action and animation to tell a tale featuring a detective, a femme fatale, a confused artist, and a whole heap of bad toons, Cool World is an interesting failure. But it will always be quickly forgotten in a cinematic landscape that also holds Who Framed Roger Rabbit, and rightly so.

The story focuses on a young man (Frank Harris, played by Brad Pitt) who ends up living in Cool World, despite the fact that he's a flesh and blood human now stuck in a world full of cartoons. Frank ends up taking on the role of guardian/protector. He becomes a detective, and his main concern is stopping other real people from coming over to Cool World, or vice versa. If a human and cartoon end up having sex, for example, then the results could be disastrous. But that doesn't stop Holli Would (Kim Basinger) from trying to make that happen, especially when she has the opportunity to bewitch the man who believes that Cool World is his creation (Gabriel Byrne).

Written by Michael Grais and Mark Victor, the script for Cool World is a hodge-podge of cliches, potentially intriguing ideas, and thin characters (aside from the three leads). Director Ralph Bakshi puts his fingerprints all over it, of course, with the style of animation, and the constant use of cartoon characters in very adult situations, and fans of his work will at least want to give this a viewing. It's just a shame that everything potentially good (even great) in the movie is often covered over by sub-par animation and a constant urge to make things silly. Not that ALL the animation is sub-par. There are some moments that are pretty good, really, but the quality just isn't consistent as it needs to be.

Pitt isn't exactly on top form, but he does okay. Likewise, Byrne. Both men perhaps spent most of their time making sure that they were looking at the right spot and interacting convincingly with characters that were to be drawn in later. Basinger, on the other hand, gives a great performance. In animated form, she's a real hottie, and in human form . . . . . . . she's Kim Basinger. It's a win win, and she effortlessly makes her character a memorable sexy seductress who convincingly winds men around her little finger.

Wild 'n' whacky in a way that will surely put off as many viewers as it pleases, Cool World feels very much like an experiment gone wrong. That may have something to do with the fact that it was seriously altered (read = watered down) once Basinger became attached and voiced concerns about the original tone. While not exactly kid-friendly, it would have been interesting to see this given a distinctly more adult feel. Whether that would have greatly improved it or not, we'll never know.

5/10

http://www.amazon.com/Cool-World-Gabriel-Byrne/dp/B0000AUHQC/ref=sr_1_1?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1415891181&sr=1-1&keywords=cool+world

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Ani-MAY-tion Month: The Lord Of The Rings (1978)

As flawed as it is ambitious, animator Ralph Bakshi's attempt to make an epic movie from The Lord Of The Rings may have left viewers with a rough, unfinished product (it all ends rather abruptly after the battle at Helm's Deep), but it stands up as a damn fine take on the familiar material. In fact, knowing just how much screentime was allocated for the Peter Jackson movies, it becomes easier and easier to see how well done this animated effort really is.

For the benefit of anyone who somehow doesn't know the story, a small hobbit named Frodo Baggins (Christopher Guard) ends up going on a quest to destroy a very powerful ring that has been left in his possession. Helped by the wizard Gandalf (William Squire), Aragorn (John Hurt), some dwarves, and a few fellow hobbits, he journeys from his home in the serene Shire to the ominous Mount Doom, the one place where the ring can be destroyed.

J. R. R. Tolkien certainly didn't seem to have any movie adaptations in mind when he wrote his most famous work. It's a dense, at times uneven (yes, I said it), novel. The fact that the tale eventually became a hugely successful trilogy is a pleasant surprise, but the fact that this animated movie from the '70s comes so close to capturing the feel and scale of the story, while also including all of the major narrative strands and set-pieces, is nigh-on miraculous.

While Bakshi is the man who gets to put his name at the top of the list, major credit should go to writers Chris Conkling and Peter S. Beagle, the men responsible for condensing so much source material into a script that's entertaining and succinct, but not insubstantial.

John Hurt is, arguably, the biggest name in the cast, but everyone fits the role that's given to them. Anthony Daniels is also part of the group, playing Legolas, and Annette Crosbie and Andre Morell both give enjoyable vocal performances as, respectively, Galadriel and Elrond.

Despite it being unfinished and imperfect, the film still holds a strange allure which I think is due, in no small part, to the rotoscoping technique mixed with the traditional animation. I certainly still hold on to the childhood memories of fear that I felt when first seeing the dark ringwraiths (I didn't know what rotoscoping was at the time, of course, but I knew certain characters in the film seemed different from the others, with the ringwraiths being the most unsettling). Perhaps when watching the film nowadays I still view it with some nostalgia colouring my perception, but I like to think not. I like to think that it really IS a strange and glorious animated epic that reached for the moon and remains full of fallen stardust.

7/10

http://www.amazon.com/Lord-Rings-Animated-Remastered-Deluxe/dp/B0033090D2/ref=sr_1_1?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1400860373&sr=1-1&keywords=the+lord+of+the+rings+1978+animated+movie

Wizards (1977)

Ralph Bakshi. If you haven't heard his name before then the chances are that you're not a fan of Fritz The Cat or The Lord Of The Rings (both movies that he directed). I've yet to see the former movie but I remember seeing the latter film when I was young and being very impressed by it, even though it had an experimental quality to it at times, mainly due to the rotoscoped elements, and was actually an unfinished adaptation of the epic tale. His work may not be entirely successful but it's almost interesting.

Wizards is a tale of magic and machinery and war and death and more. It focuses on two brothers, the good Avatar (Bob Holt) and the very bad Blackwolf (Steve Gravers). Blackwolf wants to rule many lands and sends his army further afield to achieve this while Avatar travels to take a stand and put a stop to the destructive force that his brother has become.

Wizards isn't a complete success, and it's certainly not as good as the other Bakshi movies that I know of, but it doesn't lack conviction and is a unique attempt to blend numerous ideas and styles into one grand comment on the damage caused by war and the power of propaganda. Moments of madcap humour sit alongside moments of wartime atrocities which sit alongside standard sword and sorcery fare. There are moments of almost Monty Python-esque absurdity that serve as a reminder that war is horrific and fatal and yet also absolutely ridiculous as a means to an end.

The film could have just as easily been called "Soldiers" but then I'm not sure that it would have worked so well. The fantasy element and the far-fetched premise allows Bakshi in his writer-director role to hammer home a number of pertinent observations that don't always sit well with viewers when shown in an unfussy, realistic context.

I liked Wizards, there were moments in it that I loved, but I wouldn't rush to rewatch it. The energy and creativity onscreen come at a price - a lack of cohesion, a rambling sense of ADD throughout and also the constant feeling while watching the movie that you should maybe be ingesting the same substances the makers of the film seemed to enjoy so much.

6/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Wizards-Blu-ray-Mark-Hamill-voice/dp/B003FISFSI/ref=sr_1_2?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1342217511&sr=1-2