Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers

I don’t know what kind of drugs someone was taking to come up with the idea of doing a Roger Rabbit-style “toons and people in the same universe breaking the fourth wall” movie with Chip and Dale. I’m not sure I want to know. They were likely hella strong. Either way, it works in spite of the lunacy and some awkward flaws. The movie zips along at a good pace. I never felt bored or like it was dragging. The animation is … well, since there’s a BUNCH of different animation in it, all I can say is it’s well done. There’s hand drawn and CGI in a lot of styles, and the movies draws attention to it, like the terrible uncanny valley CGI humans of movies like The Polar Express, or how trademark-dodging rip-offs look just enough like familiar movies but are just awkward enough to be unsettling. The caper is fun, even if a little rudimentary, but it’s not insulting about it. The humor has a nice balance of kid and adult stuff, and lots of call outs parents will recognize. Where it struggles in actually being as clever as it wants to be. On numerous occasions, the movie will call out something and then do it anyway. For example, it mocks the trend of having animated characters rap to seem cool, and then uses it as a plot device. Or when a certain character turns out to be working with the bad guys, and it’s mentioned as being “too cliche”. Sorry, lampshading the cliche doesn’t mean you can still get away with it. And a lot of the references are just that: references. There’s a Men’s Wearhouse joke that is apropos of nothing; it’s just there, and the movie even mentions it. Characters are in the background, or there’s some inside-baseball terminology used, and it just sits there, not amounting to anything. It becomes a case of diminishing returns as the movie goes on, too, as you just want the movie to make these references actually MEAN something. When Roger Rabbit had Daffy and Donald in the nightclub, it was funny, but it was also lead-in to Jessica Rabbit; it threw you off guard. Here, a Transformer is sitting in an audience because 🤷🏻‍♂️. It’s still a fun movie, though. Parents won’t get bored, and kids will love the energy. It could be a lot more, but should’ve been a lot worse, so I guess that counts for something.