The Essential Modern Family Film

Rating: 10/10 (22 June 2008)

It's been 20 years since Who Framed Roger Rabbit opened back in 1988. 20 years later the film is not just the granddaddy of modern animation, but it is also in my opinion, the essential family film of all family films in the current era. Who Framed Roger Rabbit truly set the standard for the personality that all other family films that followed after it, would have. The personality of Who Framed Roger Rabbit is a balance of the outrageous humor you see in comedies of the current era, and classic physical slapstick comedy performed by the classic comedians of the Golden Age of Hollywood.
Roger Rabbit really kept that balance, it was not a film that only adults should see, and it was not a film just for parents with kids who want to take their children to a movie they want to see. Roger Rabbit was truly a movie for everyone in the family which includes parents with kids, and adults who do not have a family of their own but are interested in seeing this family movie with adult themes they can identify with or understand. That is how family movies today should still be like, not too child-oriented and not very adult-oriented, they should be a combination of a movie for the family and a movie for adults.
Family movies should be presented in the middle between both types of film and they must never be just for kids or little kids. They have got to be for everyone to enjoy, and Who Framed Roger Rabbit set the bar for how modern family films should be marketed and who they should appeal to. Roger Rabbit truly defines what it means to be a classic family film.