for better or worse, it changed the game

Rating: 8/10 (14 January 2011)

From the moment the cartoon characters first walk off their animated 'set' into the real world it's clear that more than just a humorous visual breakthrough is being made: there have been blends of live action and animation before, but nothing like Roger Rabbit.
It's strictly a novelty film, of course: a showcase for its own technical wizardry. But the eye-popping interaction between humans and toons has something for everybody: enough ingenuity to entertain adults, and plenty of color and noise to distract even those children unable to follow the serpentine, gum-shoe plot (a comic strip echo, believe or not, of Roman Polanski's 'Chinatown'). Hardboiled private eye Bob Hoskins has a tough time answering the title question because the toons obey their own peculiar physical laws, setting up a topsy-turvy conflict between reality and fantasy. Thankfully, the live actors play it straight, all except Christopher Lloyd as the obvious villain, revealed in the end to be (not surprisingly) a toon in disguise.
When first released in June of 1988 (I saw it at a press screening, even earlier) the film was a timely reminder of what summer movies are supposed to be all about, offering brisk, clever pop entertainment, with a homeopathic (but worthwhile) moral: a laugh is better than a frown.