See it for the story

Rating: 8/10 (10 February 1999)

I wish people wouldn't keep on praising this movie's effects, because, as anyone who's ever gritted their teeth at the thought of yet another summer sci-fi blockbuster knows, all the spectacular effects in the world add up to nothing without a meaningful story, individualized characters, and some wit -- all of which "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" does have, which will probably ensure that people will still be watching it when new technological advances have made its tricks as obsolete as "King Kong"'s. One of the movie's greatest achievements is its meticulous and loving creation of an alternate world, a dream-L.A. that never existed but in some ways is better than the real thing, an homage to the imagination of old popular culture. It also slips in some criticism of domination by big corporations (an odd thing for a movie coming out of the studio system), by contrasting, in the viewer's mind, the L.A. of the movie world with that of today, which is precisely what Cloverleaf Industries wants to create. Indeed, the corruption associated with the building of the freeways was a real event in the 1940's, so the fantastical elements gain immediacy by not utterly straying from reality, just as the toons seem solid by interacting with humans.