I've been keen to watch a number of random films in the past week with me suffering from a bout of serious sinusitis I gave the old dvd collection a dust off and watched some old favourite documentaries like Murderball and The Devil And Daniel Johnston. But tonight I was having a random browse on youtube and came across a video that featured a cartoon dame dancing with Gabriel Byrne in what looked like a Who Framed Roger Rabbit style film. After several seconds of research (god bless imdb) I found out what I'd been missing on and discovered a familiar title . . . Cool World. I don't where I'd ever come across it before but I had heard of the title, however had no idea what it was about. I also found out that Brad Pitt and Kim Basinger also star in it. My curiosity itched as I found the trailer and saw a link to watch the whole thing. Ok . . . let's go.
Brad Pitt is beamed to the land of cartoons called Cool World when he is involved in a motorcycle accident having just come home from war in 1945. Years later a comic book artist (Byrne) is beamed into the same world which he thinks he created through his Cool World comic books. His obsession with a character of his Holli Would has him chased down by Brad Pitt who now operates as law enforcement in Cool World. There's one major law in Cool World; noids (humans) cannot have sex with doodles (cartoons). The shit hits the fan when Byrne is seduced by Holli and she changes for the worse.
What I saw was a mental, colourful and rather imaginative shit fit of a film. It's the kind of film that at times has deep subtle undertones that could make it an absolute gem of cinema, but it falls flat on it's backside because of the lack of direction and the limitations of the technology to bring it to the screen. The characters have the potential to be seriously well rounded individuals with desires and motives that aren't at first noticeable because of the serious mishandle in direction. The trailer makes out that Gabriel Byrne is the central protagonist, the poster obviously has other ideas and the film . . . well it can't really make up its mind. The animation is not on par with that of Who Framed Roger Rabbit and there is an obviously large focus on Holli as this turned up temptress with a heaving chest and body to die for. To discover this was made by the same guy who made Fritz The Cat comes as no surprise, it goes for the sex sell, rather than actually making a good movie.
I loved the old style animations, I felt a great sense of nostalgia at seeing something new from a period when I was glued to cartoons. It's just such a shame, I can see why this doesn't get as much light cast on it as Who Framed Roger Rabbit, but it has buckets of potential, especially given it's got a 15 rating. But it has this for the wrong reasons. This could have been dark, daring and noirish, and not so seedy. The plethora of rubbish cartoon characters ruin the punk feel and the weak interaction of actors to cartoons makes this a real bargain bin movie. You wonder what these great actors (save Kim Basinger) were thinking getting themselves involved in this.
I did however really enjoy watching this, it was a great discovery that rather than forgetting about I will remember . . . for a little while. It's not a great movie, but that's why these obscure films get uploaded on youtube. It's like the Super Mario Bros Movie . . . you know it's a piece of shit . . . but there's a small place for it in your heart, for some unknown reason. If you have the opportunity and the curiosity do give it a watch, stay with it and you might enjoy it. But it is a bloody car crash of a film, the ending had me scratching my head to the bone. I'm off to find a copy, a crate of beers and rally my best buds together to sit and laugh ourselves silly at how ridiculous this film is.
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