I had heard that this film was messy and awful and everything, but as I am a huge animation fan I was thinking maybe I should give it a chance, maybe it wouldn't be that bad. Cool World wasn't absolutely awful, it had its saving graces, but there is a lot wrong as well that makes it a major disappointment. This has been compared to other live-action films like Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, I'll keep the comparison brief; Cool World isn't as fun, innovative or as original as WFRR, and I will admit I wasn't expecting it to be.
PROS: The animation is not bad at all. The backgrounds look like paintings, the characters are drawn reasonably well and the colours are beautiful. The soundtrack is pretty good too, the score is wonderful and the songs are fun and suitably upbeat. I like the character of Holli Would, she is sensual and sexy, yet she is very selfish and cruel, that makes her intriguing. Personally I thought Kim Bassinger did a decent job playing her. Plus the live action sequences were well shot.
CONS: Whereas the animation sequences and the live action sequences are fine individually, merged together they don't quite gel, in fact they are quite jarring-the live action considerably duller than the animation and the human characters are incredibly stiff. While I was fine with Kim Bassinger, the other acting is not great at all I feel. Gabriel Byrne is given little to do and struggles, while Brad Pitt(who has actually given some good performances in some good films, ie. Se7en) speaks in a constant monotonic drawl to the point he's boring. The script is very unfocused, derivative and confused, and the story is incomplete and meanders all over the place. Complete with very pedestrian pacing, badly underdeveloped characters and a WTF? ending, and you have a pretty disappointing film overall.
All in all, has its moments, but out of the Ralph Bakshi films I've seen, this is my least favourite, a film that had promise but failed to deliver. 4/10 Bethany Cox
PROS: The animation is not bad at all. The backgrounds look like paintings, the characters are drawn reasonably well and the colours are beautiful. The soundtrack is pretty good too, the score is wonderful and the songs are fun and suitably upbeat. I like the character of Holli Would, she is sensual and sexy, yet she is very selfish and cruel, that makes her intriguing. Personally I thought Kim Bassinger did a decent job playing her. Plus the live action sequences were well shot.
CONS: Whereas the animation sequences and the live action sequences are fine individually, merged together they don't quite gel, in fact they are quite jarring-the live action considerably duller than the animation and the human characters are incredibly stiff. While I was fine with Kim Bassinger, the other acting is not great at all I feel. Gabriel Byrne is given little to do and struggles, while Brad Pitt(who has actually given some good performances in some good films, ie. Se7en) speaks in a constant monotonic drawl to the point he's boring. The script is very unfocused, derivative and confused, and the story is incomplete and meanders all over the place. Complete with very pedestrian pacing, badly underdeveloped characters and a WTF? ending, and you have a pretty disappointing film overall.
All in all, has its moments, but out of the Ralph Bakshi films I've seen, this is my least favourite, a film that had promise but failed to deliver. 4/10 Bethany Cox