COOL WORLD

Ralph Bakshi, the Walt Disney of surreal cartoons for adults. His films are bizarre, weird and have odd characters. He directed such animated films such as "Fritz The Cat", "Coonskin", "Heavy Traffic", the original animated film of "Lord of The Rings" and "Wizards". However, there is one film that remains as the black sheep of his films that was so bad that Ralph Bakshi stopped his career as an animator and that film is...



A comic book illustrator and writer named Jack Deebs (Gabriel Bryne) created a famous comic book series called "Cool World". The character that Jack obsesses over wishing that was real is a doodle named Holli Would (Voiced by Kim Basinger). One day he gets zapped into his cartoon world and not only meets the characters he's created but also meets Holli. Fair plot, sounds simple, but there's more too it. Jack meets a live human detective (Played by Brad Pitt) who tells him that he didn't create this place and that it's another world where everything goes except for one law "Noids (Humans) do not have sex with Doodles (Cartoons)". Now I know what you're thinking how did Brad Pitt get into the "Cool World"? Well earlier in the film in the year 1945, he gets zapped into the "Cool World" after seeing her mother die in a motorcycle accident and what zapped him to the world was a powerful spike made by a doodle professor named Whiskers. Brad Pitt also has a struggling relationship with another girl doodle but that plot is very brief. Getting back to Jack Deebs part in the story, he violates the law and has sex with the doodle Holli which turns her human (HUH?). They then go to the real world but for some strange reason both Jack and Holli are flashing back in forth from being human to a doodle.

Let's talk about the plot. The plot is ridiculous and makes zero sense. I know the whole story is centered around by a powerful spike but that part in the story is not really analyzed enough. The plot with Brad Pitt and the other doodle girl felt like a foot note and just thrown in as filler. How they get together in the end is so stupid that it makes me think "Why Couldn't They Do That Before?!" The character Holli is a very confusing character. First she wants to be real and get all the real things that "Noids" get and be like a celebrity, but she also tries to have the world taken over by doodles, WHAT THE HELL DOES SHE WANT?! In fact Holli says that humans can actually feel things and taste things, however, the other doodles constantly get hurt and scream in pain and Brad Pitt lives in the world drinking cartoon drinks and smoking cartoon cigarettes which not only he can taste but the other doddle's can taste them too, again WHAT THE HELL DOES SHE WANT? ! Speaking of Brad Pitt how the hell does he stay young since the film’s taking place in the present and he came from the year 1945? Did he travel through time; does time in the "Cool World" differ from earth time; it's never explained. Then there's Jack, how can he draw a world that already exists? Some people say he's been there before thinking it was a dream, however, when you first see him enter the world, he looks confused that he's seeing (What he thought) his world coming to life. Also in the "Cool World", a pen is considered as the only major weapon that can kill a doodle. Why is a simple pen the only major weapon that can kill a doodle, why not an eraser?

By the way does any of this sound familiar because this film looks like a very bad rip off of the successful animated combined with live action film "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?".  Let's take a quick look at the similarities.


In "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" there's town called "Toon Town" filled with classic and crazy cartoon characters and buildings with faces.




In "Cool World", there's a cartoon city (That looks like the Ghetto of "Toon Town") filled with crazy toons that make fun of some classic cartoon characters and has buildings with faces that for some reason don't talk or move.


 In "Who Framed Rogger Rabbit?", The main character is a human detective played by a very good actor Bob Hoskins



In "Cool World" The main character  is a noid detective played by an odd but ok actor Brad Pitt



In "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?", there's a hot toon who people fall in love with, and the first time we see her, she's performing.



 In "Cool World" there's a hot doodle (That takes the style of Marylin Monroe and looks like Miss America from "Coonskin") that a noid falls in love with and the first time we see her she's dancing in front of an audience



In "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" there's a funny but annoying Rabbit who spends most of the time with the detective.



In "Cool World", there's an annoying but funny Spider named Nails who's Brad Pitt's buddy and carries nearly the same traits as Roger Rabbit.



And finally in "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" there's a clever weapon that can kill a toon and that is acid, aka "The Dip".




In "Cool World" you use a pen to kill a doodle.

Do I need to go any further? This film is the ghetto and dirty version of "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?"

The acting in the film is horrible, none of the actors are convincing; they don't give the characters personality and when they do they make them look weird; and on top of that I didn't feel like they were interacting with the cartoon characters. I kept getting the feel of Ralph Bakshi putting the actors in a room; making them say they're lines and do a few movements; and just painted the cartoons around them after the scene was filmed, while also throwing him random stuff that the characters clearly don't see or are surprised by. Just by looking at the actors they act as if they knew the film was going to flop and decided to put very little effort into their acting. By the way, the sex scene with Jack and Holli is one of the worst love scenes I’ve ever seen, mostly because it didn't look like they were doing anything. The only person that's kind of good is Michele Abrams as Jack's secret admirer Jennifer because she really gets into all the surrealness that's happening but her character sadly is just pointless filler.

The animated characters are not likable; they are either extremely annoying or useless. The only characters I sort of liked was the Spider Nails because he would get a funny moment every once and while but he still doesn't stop me from realizing that it's a previous cartoon character that Ralph Bakshi already made and recycled the character with a different name and just threw him in this film. Another example of a character I sort of liked is the cool badass Sparky Sparks who gets a great badass introduction and looks cool enough to be the villain of the film, but instead he's just Brad Pitts personal punching bag. There's also Professor Whiskers who's probably the only Doodle that acts humble, however, he's the creator of a device that makes no sense and how he tries to put logic into it, doesn’t at all sound logical. The design for the “Cool World” actually does look very "cool" (No Pun Intended) because it's dark, edgy and always has Doodles popping out of nowhere doing random and violent things. The world is so surreal that not only did it make it as Number 10 on "Nostalgia Critic's Top 11 MindF--Ks" but everything that looks real looks like a cardboard cut out. The scenes when the humans are switching back and forth to human to cartoon are really nice effects and the cartoons they become are very funny and clever. The only downsides to this is we get to see Gabriel Byrne change into the most ridiculous super hero I've ever seen; we see a human Holli change into a Clown instead of her old doodle self; and on top of that, we see Brad Pitt animated, which I'm not going to lie is pretty scary.

The movie makes zero sense; the acting's bad; the characters are annoying and bland; and the film is clearly a rip off on "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?". However, the only good thing this movie has to offer is the animation, it's really creative and helps creates this surreal world.

RATING 2/5