Cool World

Title: Cool World
Director: Ralph Bakshi
Writer: Michael Grais / Mark Victor
Release Date: 10th July 1992
Runtime: 102 minutes

MAIN CAST
Kim Basinger - Holli Would (possibly the best gag in the movie)
Gabriel Byrne - Jack Deebs
Brad Pitt - Detective Frank Harris
Michelle Abrams - Jennifer Malley
Deirdre O'Connell - Isabelle Malley
Frank Sinatra Jr - Himself

PLOT OVERVIEW
Jack Deebs is a cartoonist whose comic, 'Cool World', describes a bizarre world populated by 'doodles' (cartoon characters) and 'noids' (humanoids). Unbeknownst to Jack, Cool World really exists and a doodle scientist has designed a machine to link Cool World with our own. Jack enters Cool World and encounters detective Frank Harris (whose job it is to ensure humans don't have sex with cartoon characters) and together they tangle with Holli Would, an ambitious doodle determined to escape into the 3-dimensional world.

REVIEW
Ralph Bakshi's first movie in 9 years and clearly highly influenced by the combination of animation and live action in Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Cool World fails on almost all counts. The plot is incredibly difficult to follow at times, some scenes seem totally superfluous and the whole thing is really not helped by the script. While the central idea (the possibility of procreation between cartoons and humans) is sound, the execution is just plain poor. Notable only for an early performance by Brad Pitt.

The integration of animation and live action is painfully bad at times. Considering what had been done four years earlier in Roger Rabbit, there really is no excuse for this level of amateurishness. People have said that this is simply Ralph Bakshi's 'style', but I for one don't buy it.