Who Framed Roger Rabbit

Cast: Bob Hoskins, Christopher Lloyd, Joanna Cassidy, Charles Fleisher

Director: Robert Zemeckis

Release Date: 1988

Running Time: 1hr 39 minutes

Genre: Adventure

Rating: PG

Format: DVD

Synopsis:

Detective Eddie Valiant is a cartoon rabbit's only hope to prove he is innocent, when he is suddenly accused of murder. 

Based on the novel "Who censored Roger Rabbit" by Gary K Wolf, Robert Zemeckis brings the wonderfully animated story to life! Set in Hollywood 1947, Eddie Valiant (Hoskins), a toon-hating detective goes in search of Roger Rabbit, star of the cartoon series Baby Herman and Roger Rabbit by Maroon Cartoons. Roger however isn't much of a star anymore after contentiously bluffing his lines, even worse to find that his wife Jessica has been playing patta cake behind his back. Valiant is given reports that Roger has been accused of murdering Marvin Acme, so he sets off into toon town in search of the real murderer to try and help clear Roger's name. Despite it having a PG rating, the storyline has some very adult content! The cross over of stop motion model animation and real life is absolutely superb. The late Bob Hoskins delivers one of his best performances as Eddie Valiant, a grieving private investigator who would rather concentrate more on his bottle of whisky then his job.

Hoskins acting is excellent, he manages to find the perfect combination of humour and drama. The dialogue between Roger and himself is hilarious. Charles Fleisher is just incredible as Roger Rabbit, the characterisation that he brings just through his voice is amazing. A very underrated actor. Judge Doom (Christopher Lloyd) is a cruel detective from Toon Town who desperatly wants to frame Roger. Lloyd's performance is very impressive. One of the best character actors of our time. He's so versatile. Doom is not the nicest of characters and hides a dark secret. It's hard to believe that on first impressions this movie didn't go down too well with audiences, after the success of "Back to the Future", one would think audiences would expect good things from him? The storyline is fantastic, if there was to ever be a movie that contained every Disney and Looney Tune character, this is most certainly the closest thing to it! It's surprising how many characters there are, be sure to look out for as many as you can!

Director of animation, Richard Williams worked so hard in creating Roger, the character looks fantastic on screen. What's even more awesome is the fact that actor Charles Freisher would dress up as Roger on the set to bring it to life! So much depth went into the animation alone to make it look genuine! No computers were used when making this movie! It's really fantastic! Production Designers Roger Cain and Elliot Scott really deserve so much praise for the incredible set design. What's remarkable is at certain points of the film it's actually hard to tell what's been animated and what is real set design, everything fits into place perfectly. So much creativity, so much to look at all the time. Fantastically shot at film studios in the United States and in England, cinematographer Dean Cundey, the production designers and incredible director of animation Richard Williams have really brought this book adaption to life! Beautifully edited. The whole crew really are a credit to this movie! Back to the Future composer Alan Silvestri starred as Composer for the movie,  despite the film being set in 1947, the score almost has a 20's feel to it, it works very well with the storyline and the characters. So much talent went into the making of this movie, it really isn't one to be missed! Suitable for all ages, although some scenes may be frightening for very young viewers.

5/5 stars