Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers (2022)
It’s not a reboot, It’s a comeback.
Took me a while to get here, but I finally caved and watched tonight’s movie. It’s not that I was avoiding it, as much as saving it for if others were interested - until at long last I said heck, I’m just going to watch it. I remember the NES game somewhat, but I don’t remember the show at all, so I’m sure most the nostalgia will go completely over my head unless the movie beats it in - but I’ll be real with you. The main reason I was interested in this is the pitch of a modern day Roger Rabbit with the live action and toons kicking together - but can it hold the rest of the movie up on it’s shoulder if it’s the only thing there? Grab your small Indiana Jones outfit, it’s time to check out Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers.
The story is actually kind of something. I mean, is it similar in ways to the fore-mentioned Roger Rabbit movie? Yes - but it also does it’s own thing entirely. Whereas that one deals with straight up murdering toons, this one here focuses it’s main plot on toons going missing, with a side-helping of the relationship between the two stars. Seems their careers didn’t end particularly amicably, but they are going to have to get their groove back if they hope to save their friend whose gone missing - and word on the police force is the abducted toons are getting the mock-buster treatment and being re-configured and forced into budget knock-off bootleg movies! Can they save their friend and their lost friendship while they are at it, or will they end suffering the same fate as the other bootlegged toons? I mean, it’s a Disney movie so you can be pretty sure of the result, even though it isn’t like Disney animation hasn’t had a habit of viciously murdering parents through the years so I’m not sure why we all feel so safe about harm not coming to characters in these.
The actors do a good job here, but there is some caveats to that. Look, I know it’s hard to work with things that aren’t there - we’ve seen it time and time again which movies that blend live action and anything - be it hand drawn or computer created. Although the individual actors do a good job with deliveries, even for the most part when it comes to interacting vocally with each other, there is a good amount of times where you won’t exactly be convinced that they are “actually” interacting with the characters. Maybe you didn’t expect it to - I mean it’s hard to do with people getting replaced out by effects when they are on set in costume at the time of filming, and it’s not like they know a lot of times what they are doing given the effects work usually happens after the filming right? I feel like this puts strain on the human actors that you’ll notice at times, whereas most the voice actors only have to worry about their line deliveries - so audibly acting is pretty on point, but you might find some visual hiccups on the living actors side - and not just the main who has to do the brunt of the interacting, but in the con-going chase scene later on you’ll notice a lot of scenes where it doesn’t feel much like all the extras were told to react much to whats happening.
The characters themselves are what you’d expect. We’ve got plenty of different things to play into with the animated characters over the years, including half our main duo getting that “CG treatment” to get a shiney new 3D paint job. If a character is supposed to be shady or bad, you’ll know it pretty well - and nothing here really tries to play past the top level trope of it’s character. The main detective act’s like you’d expect, the main villains act like you’d expect - and none of it is really done bad. They do manage to work some of the animation qualities into the characters for scenes - like our gumby-cop being rather sticky and stretchy, capable of wacky facial expressions, or the classic Disney Candlestick accidentally lighting things on fire. The actual animation of some of the characters can look a bit stiff at times, but it’s exaggerated in all the right parts to help sell the performances - particularly with faces.
Scaredy Gum-shoe.
So the acting is good enough with ups and downs, and the characters don’t provide a ton of development to be thrown around outside of the lead duo “getting over the past” - and our story is a little mystery detective work through a colorful land of plenty of locales and sets. Those sets are honestly quite varied, from convention centers to underground cheese dealers, to main street and all it’s bright colors and vendors. We have Russian bathhouses, collector garages, and a warehouse with some pretty fancy tech in it - it’s a decent range of things to keep the eyes happy and stop it all from looking super samey. Things will be done with the settings to help emphasize the cartoon nature of things - like having a house, but shrunk down to chipmunk size where the scale only becomes apparent when a not-cartoon is in the shot to give a good comparison. It’s a nice touch, and although it might not be as dramatic as a world hopping adventure, the variety is plenty enough to keep you wondering what you might see next.
Speaking of seeing things, let’s get to the main reason I even watched this movie: the effects. The idea of a modern take on the Roger Rabbit is incredibly appetizing to me, like a nice blustery waft of that finely crafted cheese wheel sitting in the window. So I get some of that, but I end up finding that it’s not really quite what I had thought - and really I have nobody to blame for it but myself. Although on the trailer pitch its 3D versus 2D, what we actually get is 3D versus cell-shaded style 3D meant to look like 2D. Maybe if I hadn’t seen so many of those newer-age Netflix Anime that does the same thing I wouldn’t have noticed, but after I picked up on it I couldn’t not see it. That said, we do get a bunch of different things in here - with the fancy high-res CG, the old uncanny valley CG, muppets, puppets, live action, and of course the fake-2D characters. The sheer number of them they manage to fit in is pretty impressive as well - and I’m not entirely sure all the 2D types are the fake 2D, some of those are a lot harder to tell (especially considering they aren’t in as much of the movie). If you grew up in the 80s and 90s you’ll get hit with a nostalgia stick at some point or another, seeing things like various Disney characters, HeMan, Voltron, the Coca-Cola Bear, and a ridiculous amount of others like Ugly Sonic. I don’t know how they managed to get all those licenses, but with a little luck it isn’t a case of poorly handled Irony given the main plot line.
As I mentioned, some of the interactions between live characters and fake ones don’t work as well as they could. For the most part same-on-same usually works quite well, even if it’s between the different styles (probably at least in part because of the fake-2D action going on). That said, you’ll get some character-slide during camera moves if you are a real detail-watcher, but for the average audience I don’t think they’ll really be pulled past the surface layer of fun to really get their burners all fired up. The audio mix is good, the back ground music is pretty fitting, and the line deliveries are certainly well enough done to be enjoyable. That last part is good, because there’s a lot of jokes in this - and sometimes timing is everything. There’s actually quite a lot of jokes about the animation styles themselves, and somehow the lowest fruits seem to be hanging from the tree still - which isn’t to say there isn’t some stuff that might be better off if your kid didn’t get, but hey - it is what it is. You’ll probably get at least one chuckle out of the movie, all subjectivity aside.
You can smell this picture.
I had fun. I wasn’t quite as impressed as I figured I would be given how they went about some things, but where my expectation weren’t blown away by the quality on display the quantity sure helped make up for some of it. I saw some characters - even if as a bit part - that I would never have anticipated seeing, and for actual die-hard fans of the show these characters are from, they’ll probably love the episode references and the likes sprinkled throughout. Although at times it feels like it could have been more than what it is, what it is largely doesn’t feel like a cash grab, but instead something that just set out to be entertaining for a watch and maybe bring back some memories without straying too far from the known.