a great technical achievement...and?

Rating: 4/10 (17 March 2003)

The years have not been kind to "Who Framed Roger Rabbit." It was hailed unanimously at the time of its release as a "dazzling technical achivement", etc. and I'm not going to complain about that aspect of it. The craftsmanship in blending live action with animated characters is superb, but the movie has little else to offer. Of course, I was a little kid at the time of the movie's release, and I think what impressed my easily-amused mind the most was the atmosphere of real-life fantasy the filmmakers had created--not the story. Upon a recent viewing of WFRR, I found myself generally unimpressed with it, and often just bored with what was happening on-screen. Meticulous attention to technical detail can only drive a movie so far before the viewer gets suspicious of its other attributes. The humor is often loud and forced, and some scenes are so melodramatic and sappy you could pour them on your pancakes. The plot plays out like "Chinatown Lite" and finds a good (if exaggerated) villain in Christopher Lloyd's Judge Doom. But "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" will always be remembered for its attention to technical detail, not its plot. And I can't complain about its craftsmanship--living in an era where digital computer graphics have rendered film animation a simple, even lazy task, it's refreshing to see something that obviously took a lot of effort to put together. "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" is more a pop-culture artifact that a seamless cinematic masterpiece, which is a shame considering its potential.
4/10