BlackWolfe

Somehow I missed this movie when it came out, and didn't see it until about twelve years later. I bought it based on the cover copy, which seemed to indicate a fun fantasy movie: D&D player ends up in a fantasy world. It never occurred to me that they meant "fantasy" literally.

HOWEVER, a lot of people have been unfairly attacking this movie for years, claiming that it espouses the "dangers" of role-playing.

FACT: Tom Hanks' character is established to have psychological problems from the beginning of the movie, including an inability to separate fantasy and reality.

FACT: This psychologically unstable character is the only one to have this problem.

FACT: The rest of the players use problem-solving skills they developed from role-playing to save his life.

Far from showing the dangers of role-playing, I thought this movie did a good job of showing the kind of deductive and inductive reasoning that can be developed by using your imagination.

I think it did at least as good a job of defending role-playing as it did attacking it.

This is one of the most-viewed tapes in our small library. The casting is incredible, the actors play their characters to the hilt (without overplaying them), and the plot is close enough to believable that nothing threatens suspension of disbelief.

Samuel Jackson, as usual, excels, giving an outsider's perspective on the movie's interesting world of spies and counterspies.

Geena Davis flip-flops between nice-girl Sam and bad-girl Charlie effortlessly as her original personality starts (early on) to reassert itself.

The patter comes fast and flawlessly, with a bitter sort of sarcasm that fits the characters well. (Although, I really wanted to hear Geena Davis say "chefs do that" a couple more times, it's such a wonderful tagline.)

I'm not one for blockbuster action movies, but this one drew me in from the first line and held me fast until the end. In traditional blockbuster style, sometimes the laws of physics turn a blind eye to events in the movie.

On the other hand, unlike in many action movies, it's quite clear that the standard blockbuster fare (getting shot, stabbed, blown up, and so on) HURTS these characters. From a realism standpoint, keep track of Samuel Jackson's character, and the punishment he's put through: you'll find that it shows on him quite realistically by the climax.

I find myself repeating choice lines of dialogue (usually Jackson's), thrilling to scenes I've seen dozens of times before as though the climax was in doubt. This movie does for me what movies should do: it takes you into its world and keeps you there until it's over.

I rented this movie shortly after it came out, hoping for something unique, creative, and fun.

Ralph Bakshi has great potential, but he has a tendency to fall short. Cool World had great potential as well, but it also fell short, in my opinion.

The premise is nice, and I liked the characters for who and what they were.

However, the execution left more than a little to be desired, as a unique opportunity to tell a story about these characters degenerated into rather adolescent humor.

I found the set design (especially the "Cool World" sets) disappointing -- in order to show the animated nature of "Cool World," the props are all two-dimensional cutouts, and rather than reinforce the twisted reality of "Cool World," it simply serves to remind you that you're watching a movie.

The looped animations (usually used to help set the scene in some of the Cool World locations, such as -- most notably -- the club) were also a bit grating. If this was such a large production, surely an extra couple of dozen cels of animation wouldn't have broken the budget?

All in all, I have come to anticipate this sort of thing from Bakshi, and I have yet to be surprised.