Movie Review

Chip 'n' Dale: Rescue Rangers offers up jokes and nostalgia aplenty

Dale (Andy Samberg) and Chip (John Mulaney) in Chip 'n' Dale: Rescue Rangers.

Photo courtesy of Disney Enterprises, Inc.

While Disney has been busy rebooting almost all of its animated feature films, it's mostly ignored its famous characters who’ve existed in short films or TV shows. While standards like Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Goofy, and Donald Duck may be tricky to modernize, fringe characters like chipmunks Chip and Dale can be played with a bit more, as witnessed in the new Disney+ film Chip ‘n’ Dale: Rescue Rangers.

Based on the short-lived-but-beloved-by-millenials TV series of the same name, the film takes off from the idea that Chip (John Mulaney) and Dale (Andy Samberg) were actors living in a world where animated characters and humans live side by side. Thirty years after the series went off the air, Chip is now an insurance salesman, while Dale has gotten CGI surgery to update his look as he tries to hang on to his glory days at animation conventions.

When their old co-star Monterey Jack (Eric Bana) is kidnapped by Mean Pete (Will Arnett), a villain known to be part of a bootleg movie operation, Chip and Dale reunite to investigate his disappearance. Along the way they gain the help of the police, including Chief Putty (J.K. Simmons) and Detective Ellie Whitfield (Kiki Layne), but learning the truth takes them down paths they couldn’t imagine.

Directed by Akiva Schaffer and starring Samberg, the film features two-thirds of The Lonely Island and certainly has their wacky mindset. The references are a mile a minute in the film, making it nearly impossible to keep up. The first and most obvious is Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, the groundbreaking 1988 film that had live action and animated characters interacting with each other. This film has the advantage of 30 years of technological advancements, but it shares the same joyful feeling that comes with the collision of the two mediums.

Working from a script by Dan Gregor and Doug Mand, the film not only pays homage to the original series and earlier incarnations of Chip and Dale, but it includes many characters that Disney doesn’t even own. Making appearances are everything from E.T. to He-Man to Voltron, but most memorable is a hilarious cameo by “Ugly Sonic,” aka the version of Sonic the Hedgehog with human teeth that appeared in the first film’s initial trailer that was soon changed after fan outcry.

How they got the rights to all the non-Disney characters is simply amazing, but the film is more than just its references. The filmmakers came up with all manner of clever touches, like Chip, Dale, and other small characters living in miniaturized buildings that exist right next to human-sized structures. Like the references, there are too many small details to properly account for, but each is a delight that adds up to the film being a visual wonderland.

Those who grew up loving the original cartoon will get that extra serotonin kick from the nostalgia the film brings, but it has much to offer anyone not as familiar. The visual gags are worth the price of admission alone, but also fantastic are jokes about the 1990s, diverse styles of animation, and actors with distinct voices playing characters in multiple different movies.

Speaking of distinct voices, both Mulaney, who has a dry delivery, and Samberg, who’s super enthusiastic, make for a classic, Odd Couple-style pairing. Their unique comic style opens up the film to a larger audience, as do Arnett, Seth Rogen, Keegan-Michael Key, and others. Tress MacNeille, who voiced Chip and multiple other characters on the show, makes an appearance, so there’s still a nod to the original voices.

Chip ‘n’ Dale: Rescue Rangers is a success on all fronts, giving older millennials a chance to revisit their childhood and everyone else a hugely entertaining movie with jokes coming from all directions. The style of the film may not have worked with other, better-known characters, but it’s the perfect fit for two adorable chipmunks.

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Chip ‘n’ Dale: Rescue Rangers is now playing on Disney+.

Dale (Andy Samberg), Chip (John Mulaney), and Bob (Seth Rogen) in Chip 'n' Dale: Rescue Rangers.

Dale (Andy Samberg), Chip (John Mulaney), and Bob (Seth Rogen) in Chip 'n' Dale: Rescue Rangers

Photo courtesy of Disney Enterprises, Inc.

Dale (Andy Samberg), Chip (John Mulaney), and Bob (Seth Rogen) in Chip 'n' Dale: Rescue Rangers.

Movie Review

Unusual film experiment Here reunites team from Forrest Gump

Tom Hanks and Robin Wright in Here

Photo courtesy of Sony Pictures

Tom Hanks and Robin Wright in Here.

The quality of the career of director Robert Zemeckis can almost be broken evenly in half. His first 12 films, which included the Back to the Future trilogy, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, Forrest Gump, and Cast Away, were mostly hits both with critics and audiences. But in his last 10 films starting with The Polar Express in 2004, Zemeckis has become obsessed with pushing technological boundaries, which has ironically hindered the success of those movies.

His latest boundary-pushing film is Here, which uses the highly unusual technique of never moving the camera. Instead, it’s what happens at this one particular corner of the world that’s of interest, from the time of dinosaurs to the rise of COVID, and many other things in between. The film sees a small parcel of land go through many changes, finally resulting in a house built around 1900, a home that goes on to be occupied by a number of people over the course of 120 years or so.

The most prominent among them are Al (Paul Bettany) and Rose (Kelly Reilly), who buy the house soon after Al comes home from World War II. They raise a family of three children, with one of them, Richard (Tom Hanks), becoming the main focus of the film. He falls in love with Margaret (Robin Wright), has a child of his own, discovers a love of painting, gives up that passion to provide for his family, and more as he spends almost his entire life under the same roof.

The marketing for the film wants to make sure you know that it is the long-awaited reunion of Zemeckis, Hanks, and Wright following the Oscar-winning smash hit that was Forrest Gump (Eric Roth, who wrote Gump, also co-wrote this film with Zemeckis). Zemeckis clearly liked the storytelling from Gump, as much like Forrest being part of many historical 20th century moments, the small area of land in an unnamed Eastern state in Here somehow sees it be both the home of the son of Benjamin Franklin and the inventor of the La-Z-Boy recliner (fact check: not true).

Zemeckis was inspired to use just one angle in the film from the graphic novel by Richard McGuire on which it is based. Similar to the novel, Zemeckis inserts rectangles that show small glimpses of different time periods overlaid on the current scene, fading them in and out to help with transitions. Although at times the film can feel more like theater than a movie, these brief looks at other eras within another era help the film feel more dynamic.

What doesn’t work is the computer-generated imagery in the film. Before the house is built, everything on screen (save for the actors) is CGI and it feels wholly unnatural. And for some reason, Zemeckis has the nearly 70-year-old Hanks and nearly 60-year-old Wright play themselves as young as teenagers, and the de-aging technology simply isn’t believable. As their characters age, the effect improves, but only slightly.

Because the performances of everyone in the film are chopped up into small pieces, it’s tough to say any one of them stands out. As the bigger stars, Hanks and Wright naturally draw attention, and they acquit themselves well. Bettany and Reilly are fine, but they seem to be playing mid-century caricatures instead of actual human beings. Actors in other time periods aren’t given enough to do to be judged properly.

Alternately cheesy and poignant, Here is a bold swing from a filmmaker who has made many in his long career. Because of the inherent emotions that come with following characters over a long period of time, the story has an impact, although it constantly has to contend with Zemeckis trying to distract viewers with displays of technical prowess.

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Here opens in theaters on November 1.

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