Who Framed Roger Rabbit: Vista Series

Disney | minutes | | | Standard DVD reviewed by: Christopher Bligh

In the summer of 1988, Tom Hanks was thrilling the audiences as a 14 year old inside an adult's body, Bruce Willis was battling off baddies in a high rise, and a little combination of animation and live action came to life to be one of the biggest movies of the year. Unlike most years, the Oscars had a very good memory and well rewarded this Robert Zemeckis feature that was an underdog before its release and became a better movie both at the time and even today, but the age old question still remains, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?

It's 1947, the Great War had ended and Hollywood is full of movies, but most of all it's full of toons. This is welcome company to most, all except private detective Eddie Valiant (Bob Hoskins). A toon killed his brother one day and he hasn't forgiven them since. Nevertheless, he's assigned onto a case where the owner of Toontown, Marvin Acme (Stubby Kaye) is having an affair with Jessica Rabbit (voice of Kathleen Turner), wife of popular toon Roger Rabbit (voice of Charles Fleischer). One night after a night out, Acme is found dead and the main suspect is Roger. As the pieces start to fit, the high authority known as Judge Doom (Christopher Lloyd) starts to gain on his tail to rid Roger and the majority of the toons and their very close-by home next to Hollywood known as Toontown. Can Eddie solve the case before the future of Toontown becomes a thing of the past?

You can tell a movie is destined for greatness when one scene and a multitude of scenes end up in the same movie. The one that sticks out to me in this movie is the introduction to the club of the toons when Daffy Duck and Donald Duck are dueling at the piano. This is one sight that not only provided many laughs but also was quite touching to see these two well known cartoon characters in the same scene. It didn't end just at that, there were multiple cartoon cameos in this film and it's not just for show. It actually is a combination at first glimpse looking gimmicky but the end result is a great balance between colorful film noir and cartoon adventure and a little comedy and a little drama.

Bob Hoskins gives a great performance as Eddie, the detective who's sense of humor went out the door the day the piano fell on his brother's head. His character does give a great message that it's never too late to have a toon help you get your sense of humor back. His explanation in the movie theater with Roger about his grief is still one scene that brought this viewer to some tears both in the mix of performance and with the lovely score by Zemeckis regular Alan Silvestri.

Aside from a great score, the movies visual effects and look are astonishing and 16 years after it's first release, it's still a great movie to enjoy both young adult and old. Who Framed Roger Rabbit you ask? Well, Robert Zemeckis, in a rectangular shape of wonder and animation and great traditional cartoon humor for all.

When first viewing this DVD, I originally thought it came out in 2 different sets being the first disc was a full framed version of the movie but, to my wonderful surprise, the widescreen version was on disc 2 in it's 1.85:1 aspect ratio glory and the transfer is a welcome improvement over the previous movie-only release. The special effects didn't look obviously matted as early transfers of the Star Wars movie will indicate. The picture stays pretty sharply solid. There are some scenes when it's a little darker or a little lighter than usual, but despite that it's a beautiful transfer and the best we will ever see the worlds of color in this movie and more good news, it's anamorphic better than the previous non-anamorphic transfer.

As I sing the praises of the transfer, the sound track was slightly better than the previous release. Certain special effects are a little delayed on the rear channels and given the source material should sound much better being a fairly recent movie but pretty much in the end the "Tron" DVD had a better track than this one, but it does have it's positive moments. This disc also has French and Spanish language tracks along with English subtitles.

The previous one disc release was featureless and this Vista Series rectifies that problem with plenty on both discs. On Disc 1, along with the Full Framed version of the film, we have all 3 Roger Rabbit shorts, a few of which were put before released of movies in the 1980s, most notably Honey I Shrunk The Kids and Dick Tracy. They were available in a previous laserdisc release and it is a welcome sight to see these 3 entertaining cartoons included on this release. Then a present-day documentary "Who Made Roger Rabbit" is hosted by Charles Fleischer and it is a 10 minute featurette for the cutes and is good for kids but to many adults will see it as minor fluff.Also, a "set-top" game called "Trouble in Toontown" is included and it's ok but not as amusing as the Finding Nemo guess the shape game. Sneak Peeks also include trailers of Schoolhouse Rock and Ultimate X.(And there is a special easter egg involving the film's trailer is included on Disc 1 in the main menu pushing all the way down a few times highlighting the meter on Benny's cab, an amusing watch and brings back PPV memories)

Disc 2 provides even more extras besides the widescreen transfer of the film. First, a treat of a commentary with participants Robert Zemeckis, producer Frank Marshall, Jeffrey Price, Peter Seaman, Steve Starkey and Ken Ralston. All participate on the same level and goes through some wonderful production struggles, preview screenings and animation all around. This covers all bases and is more than worth a listen. Another commentary comes in the form of text known as Toontown Confidential and it provides good additional info as well.

Next is a documentary covering the film past and present called "Behind The Ears" making a nice companion piece to the commentaries before it through the making of Roger with plenty of people, plenty of stories and plenty effects with humans and toons. Also included is a talked about deleted scene with intro called "The Pig Head Sequence" which is amusing and a fine addition despite it's disclusion from the movie.

The Valiant Files provides many photo galleries of production pictures, artwork and advertising concepts for the film and are worth a browse. Before and After goes through a scene through split screen development and great to see the product with and without animation.

Toon Stand Ins is exactly the title of what it goes through and is an amusing piece between toons and human stand ins. Finally, On Set! Benny The Cab shows another scene of interaction of making a scene and is great to see its inclusion.

The Vista Series is once again pulled another Rabbit out of it's hat because Roger is certainly a great addition to any DVD collectors library.