I had grand plans when I first got Disney+. I was going to revive my childhood with all the classic Disney channel shows of the nineties! I was a big Adventures of the Gummi Bears fan, but I dabbled in all the shows of that era, and I own a fair share of the McDonald’s merchandise from those years, and there is a lot of it. I’ve been excited for this movie; just knowing it exists makes me super happy inside. I expect it’s going to be a revamped toon-and-live-action mesh-up like Who Framed Roger Rabbit? and I’m all for it. I just hope the story is worthwhile, and the effort has gone into bringing these characters back in a fun way, as opposed to banking on a few jokes here and there, and a barebones nostalgia boost to the bottom. Oh, who am I kidding – an enema of nostalgic fluid may do fine 😝
As the story goes, chipmunk actors Chip and Dale were riding high in the early ‘90, with their own case-solving television show as the lead duo in Chip ‘n’ Dale: Rescue Rangers. But Dale got tired of being the butt of most jokes, and the show broke down as Dale tried to make it alone. Now the pair haven’t seen each other in decades. But when old co-star Monterey Jack (voiced excellently by Eric Bana) calls them both saying he’s in big trouble with dangerous fellows, and then goes missing, Dale thinks it an idea to work the case with Chip, alongside the police, reliving old times. Ellie Steckler (Kiki Layne) of the LAPD tells Dale and Chip that when old tunes go missing these days, there’s usually only two days to find them before they turn up in the underground world of ‘bootlegging’. So it’s a race against time, to solve the mystery, find their friend, and patch up old wounds within the duo’s broken friendship.
Well, I didn’t love it. This review might turn nitpicky pretty quickly as I try to siphon out the reason why, because I don’t really know why. The movie’s internal logic is mostly inventive, and has a lot going for it – I love the ballsy move to only put Dale in CGI, explaining it as a cosmetic surgery that toons can get. The movie also explains that when a franchise is rebooted, the cartoon characters are the same actors, although they may look differently – like, Baloo from the 2016 remake of The Jungle Book is the same Baloo who gigged alongside Dale on Saturday Disney in Tale Spin. I think that means that when Seth Rogan’s Pumbaa shows up later on, he’s really the same warthog from the original The Lion King, and there isn’t two conflicting Pumbaas running around, but I’m not a hundred percent sure on that 🤔 The movie’s take on bootlegging is interesting too, and the way it brings in the uncanny valley makes for some hilarious callbacks – Seth Rogan’s new character, Bob, in this film, can never make eye-contact with his Polar Express/Beowulf expressions, and is my favourite. I like that Ugly Sonic gets put to some good use too, a path to redemption in some way, although I wish the movie had used him a little more sparingly.
Maybe it’s that I don’t think you can be nostalgic and cynical at the same time. The emotional resonance in this movie is phony at times, giving in to modern cliches like mocking its source material or deflating genuine moments with undercutting jokes. Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers falls victim to ‘mocking the thing that it’s seriously doing’ a few times, like saying how lame it is when legacy cartoons rap for a modern audience (hello, Porky Pig in Space Jam: A New Legacy), and that it’s obnoxious when new movies get big musical stars to redo a classic theme tune. I think there’s a way to make reference to yourself and your genre, but still revel in the assets, or simply just, don’t do the lame thing if you think its lame. Luckily for this movie, it has Andy Samberg as Dale to carry it, bringing with him his Brooklyn Nine-Nine and The Lonely Island charms – his superpower has always been making the lame supercool, and his savvy style saves a fair few of this movie’s comedic and narrative moments. I’m not surprised that this movie’s director is Akiva Schaffer, who has always worked close with Samberg, and knows how to produce his best work. But, on the other hand, I thought John Mulaney as Chip was flat as a tack – and I was just praising him underhandedly for Spider-Ham as a superior cartoon in my Sonic the Hedgehog 2 review: D’oh! I understand that Chip is supposed to be the serious one, but I also think it takes a lot for me to note a voice in an animated role didn’t work for me, especially because it’s rare, due to the nature of animation, where actors do multiple takes, usually assuring a bad end product never occurs.
And I don’t want to be thinking of Peter Pan as a washed-up two-bit crook, or think that Flounder can’t pay his rent – that’s sacrilege to the fantasy that Disney entails! Maybe it’s on me to get over that one, but why is Peter Pan still wearing his old costume to the office or even called Peter Pan if it was just an acting gig way back when? I think back on Who Framed Roger Rabbit? and how the toons were all depicted as working in showbiz, right? Toons existed to entertain, but they also lived amongst the people – here, the toons just coexist, and the only logical times we have to see reconigisable toon icons is in flashbacks, the cons (which works really well with Sonic and Tigra), or when they’re being released from the bootleggers, and the latter makes me sad. The rest of the time it’s often generic toons that mean nothing to me filling in the background, which is a little uninteresting. Plus, just like Chip, I suspected early on that the movie was hinting at Ellie as a surprise villain, but not only is Ellie a sophisticated young woman, but she’s also black, so depicting her as anything but holier than thou was never on the cards – sounds a bit racist, doesn’t it? ‘Tis the climate I perceive, and what results is that I felt no believable tension, and the movie proves me right. If I brought up my vapid deduction with the movie, I’m sure I could easily expect the same response it gives for its own cliché choices; ‘if it ain’t broke…’ – I think it’s broken.
Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers has a lot going for it – my favourite little nugget was all the Seth Rogan characters sharing a scene together. But I think this movie needed an attitude adjustment, or maybe it’s my framing that’s off, stopping me from completely loving this movie or experiencing the most fun. It’s pretty special that Disney got permissions to use characters from other studios, and combined many animation styles into the one operation, making Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers a unique wonder like Who Framed Roger Rabbit? or The Happytime Murders. But I don’t think Who Framed Roger Rabbit? had a cynical bone in its body (maybe towards the depiction of women in cartoons, with Betty Boop introducing Jessica Rabbit). Even Amy Adams’ Enchanted manages a pretty earnest production in its metaphysical explorations, and I love that. Is this Disney’s answer to Space Jam: A New Legacy? In a way. And I’m also annoyed that people seem to like this when Warner Bros.’ sequel to Scoob! has been canned! Scoob! was combining all the Hanna-Barbera characters for one big comfy modern universe 😠 Ah well, sometimes I live in the minority.
3.0
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