Reviewer's Rating 4 out of 5 听 User Rating 4 out of 5
Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988)
PG

In a time when human performers regularly share the screen with actors who aren't really there (and we're not talking about Sadie Frost), it seems strange that when "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" came out in 1988, it proved something of a landmark for the visual effects unit.

Combining two- and three-dimensional characters, this knockabout comedy is set in Toontown - a Hollywood-esque place where humans and cartoons live side by side. Worried that his glamorous missus Jessica (voiced by Turner) is cheating on him, cartoon actor Roger Rabbit (voiced by Fleischer) asks the studio to hire grumpy gumshoe Eddie Valiant (Hoskins) to uncover the truth.

But when a man ends up dead, Roger becomes the prime suspect and so he taps Valiant - a man who hates anything drawn with a pen - to help him find the real killer.

Visually stunning and creatively superior, Zemeckis's work is frequently staggering and always entertaining. Pulling off that old trick of appealing to the kiddies, while also satisfying their cynical chaperones, it raked in over $350 million worldwide.

Hoskins is ideal as the central foil, letting the animators have their fun in a colourful, fun-filled world. And there's an incredibly authentic dash of human-cartoon sexual tension in the shape of Jessica - a torch song beauty whose sashay is enough to put her up there with the silver screen's sexiest leading ladies. Not bad for someone created out of felt tip.

"Who Framed Roger Rabbit" is on 大象传媒1 at 5.55pm, Monday 16th April 2001.

End Credits

Director: Robert Zemeckis

Writer: Jeffrey Price, Peter S Seaman

Stars: Bob Hoskins, Kathleen Turner, Joanna Cassidy, Charles Fleischer, Stubby Kaye

Genre: Family, Comedy, Animation

Length: 103 minutes

Cinema: 1988

VHS: 25 March 1996

Country: USA

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