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Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers (2022 movie)
Jan. 18th, 2024 04:24 amSo... I finally watched it. Despite my hesitation going in, I have to say... it's way better than it has any right to be. I mean, I'm not saying it's great or anything, but it's pretty good. More than just "okay," anyway. Much better than the utter dogshit that I dreaded it would be going in, at the very least.
Here's the thing, they knew this movie was going to be really dumb when they made it. And it is. It's really dumb. They knew it was something that they couldn't take seriously, and for the most part, they didn't. And yet, they took it juuuuuuust seriously enough to make it still be interesting to watch.
But if you're going to watch this movie, you're probably in it for the references. It's like Who Framed Roger Rabbit? on steroids. (I mean, Roger Rabbit himself is in the movie, for example.) Even though this was a Disney movie, there were characters from way more than just Disney here. Basically, if it was animated at some point in the past century or so and was more than just some niche Internet thing[1], then it was probably referenced or at least mentioned at some point in this movie. Rather than even begin to try to name any of it from memory, I'm just going to link to this.
And yeah, Ugly Sonic was in the movie, but I'm a bit surprised that he had as big of a role in the movie as he did...
...and that brings me to what is probably my main complaint about the movie. Ugly Sonic, oddly enough, had kind of a bigger role in the movie than any of the actual Rescue Rangers did (aside from Chip and Dale themselves, of course).
Monterey Jack was the guy who essentially kicked off the main "plot" of the movie (what there was of it), and that was the driving force behind why Chip and Dale were even doing anything together in the first place, but then Monterey Jack himself essentially disappeared entirely, until the end. Other than the opening flashback stuff and the reunion stuff at the very end, he was barely in the movie aside from his one scene. But, at least, his presence was still sort of felt, given that, again, what happened to him was why the events of the movie were happening at all.
However, Gadget (my favorite from the original show) and Zipper probably had even less presence. Again, aside from the flashback stuff at the start, the little bit of reunion stuff at the end, and whatever passing references were made to them off and on, they had their one "big" scene together with Dale (which wasn't very big at all, and Chip wasn't even there), and... that was it. (For what it's worth, I had no problem at all with Gadget and Zipper having hooked up in "real life" the way a lot of people seemed to, though. It was funny. That was the point. I just wish they'd been in the movie more, that's all. Weird little mousefly children and all.)
One other thing that bothered me was that the movie as a whole tried way too hard to be "meta." The vast majority of the references were there just for the sake of the reference and nothing more, and some of them were distracting, but I'm talking about more than just that. I'm talking about shit like Chip's whole "it's so dumb when they make cartoon animals rap to try to stay relevant" joke, and then, who would have guessed it, Chip and Dale later have to rap, because the plot contrived a reason for them to need to rap, all while they were complaining about how lame and stupid it was that they had to rap. Another such "joke" was at the end, with the very last lines in the movie, which I will directly quote here: Dale: "Hey, do you think we can get, like, a pop star to do the theme song?" Chip: "Yeah, right. Like a super serious version, even though everyone just wants to hear the original?" Dale: "Yes! That exactly." Which then immediately transitioned into some random ass-pop remix of the Rescue Rangers theme playing over the credits. *Yawn* I didn't mind the references for references sake, but that sort of meta "humor" is the kind of dumbshit that made me roll my eyes and sigh a bit.
And... the fact that Chip and Dale don't do the chipmunk voices... it did bother me at first, but after a while I got used to it. (Actually, they did do the chipmunk voices, at least a time or two, here and there, but all that did was just draw attention to the fact that they weren't doing them the rest of the time.)
Honestly, though, I'd have probably rather just had an actual, feature-length Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers movie, rather than the whole meta "Chip and Dale (and Monterey Jack and Gadget and Zipper) were just 'actors'" thing with the cartoon being "just a show" within the movie itself. The characters you saw in this movie weren't the characters from the show, they were the "actors" who "played" those characters in the show. (But then, they make another "meta" "joke" about how Gadget's "real life" character, what very, very little we see of it, was basically exactly the same as the "character" she "played" in the "show." Again, direct quote from the movie: Dale: "I'm amazed this thing actually flies. And you know how to fly it." Gadget: "Yeah, I guess my character from the old show and my character in real life are basically exactly the same." Dale: "Yeah, I guess so." *Snore*)
Watching this movie is kind of like what it would be like if you watched a movie starring Sarah Michelle Gellar, David Boreanaz, Alyson Hannigan, Nicholas Brendan, Charisma Carpenter, Anthony Stewart Head, etc. all playing themselves, openly talking about how they were the actors on the TV show Buffy the Vampire Slayer almost 30 years ago, and then they all went on a vaguely Buffy the Vampire Slayer-ish adventure together in the "real life" world of the movie. (And... now that I've written that out, I'd probably actually watch something like that, too.)
Still, despite the gripes, I'd recommend it, on the whole. Just don't go into it expecting high art or anything.
[1] - I mean, you're not going to see references to something like Homestar Runner (as rad as that would've been) or anything in this movie, for example.
Here's the thing, they knew this movie was going to be really dumb when they made it. And it is. It's really dumb. They knew it was something that they couldn't take seriously, and for the most part, they didn't. And yet, they took it juuuuuuust seriously enough to make it still be interesting to watch.
But if you're going to watch this movie, you're probably in it for the references. It's like Who Framed Roger Rabbit? on steroids. (I mean, Roger Rabbit himself is in the movie, for example.) Even though this was a Disney movie, there were characters from way more than just Disney here. Basically, if it was animated at some point in the past century or so and was more than just some niche Internet thing[1], then it was probably referenced or at least mentioned at some point in this movie. Rather than even begin to try to name any of it from memory, I'm just going to link to this.
And yeah, Ugly Sonic was in the movie, but I'm a bit surprised that he had as big of a role in the movie as he did...
...and that brings me to what is probably my main complaint about the movie. Ugly Sonic, oddly enough, had kind of a bigger role in the movie than any of the actual Rescue Rangers did (aside from Chip and Dale themselves, of course).
Monterey Jack was the guy who essentially kicked off the main "plot" of the movie (what there was of it), and that was the driving force behind why Chip and Dale were even doing anything together in the first place, but then Monterey Jack himself essentially disappeared entirely, until the end. Other than the opening flashback stuff and the reunion stuff at the very end, he was barely in the movie aside from his one scene. But, at least, his presence was still sort of felt, given that, again, what happened to him was why the events of the movie were happening at all.
However, Gadget (my favorite from the original show) and Zipper probably had even less presence. Again, aside from the flashback stuff at the start, the little bit of reunion stuff at the end, and whatever passing references were made to them off and on, they had their one "big" scene together with Dale (which wasn't very big at all, and Chip wasn't even there), and... that was it. (For what it's worth, I had no problem at all with Gadget and Zipper having hooked up in "real life" the way a lot of people seemed to, though. It was funny. That was the point. I just wish they'd been in the movie more, that's all. Weird little mousefly children and all.)
One other thing that bothered me was that the movie as a whole tried way too hard to be "meta." The vast majority of the references were there just for the sake of the reference and nothing more, and some of them were distracting, but I'm talking about more than just that. I'm talking about shit like Chip's whole "it's so dumb when they make cartoon animals rap to try to stay relevant" joke, and then, who would have guessed it, Chip and Dale later have to rap, because the plot contrived a reason for them to need to rap, all while they were complaining about how lame and stupid it was that they had to rap. Another such "joke" was at the end, with the very last lines in the movie, which I will directly quote here: Dale: "Hey, do you think we can get, like, a pop star to do the theme song?" Chip: "Yeah, right. Like a super serious version, even though everyone just wants to hear the original?" Dale: "Yes! That exactly." Which then immediately transitioned into some random ass-pop remix of the Rescue Rangers theme playing over the credits. *Yawn* I didn't mind the references for references sake, but that sort of meta "humor" is the kind of dumbshit that made me roll my eyes and sigh a bit.
And... the fact that Chip and Dale don't do the chipmunk voices... it did bother me at first, but after a while I got used to it. (Actually, they did do the chipmunk voices, at least a time or two, here and there, but all that did was just draw attention to the fact that they weren't doing them the rest of the time.)
Honestly, though, I'd have probably rather just had an actual, feature-length Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers movie, rather than the whole meta "Chip and Dale (and Monterey Jack and Gadget and Zipper) were just 'actors'" thing with the cartoon being "just a show" within the movie itself. The characters you saw in this movie weren't the characters from the show, they were the "actors" who "played" those characters in the show. (But then, they make another "meta" "joke" about how Gadget's "real life" character, what very, very little we see of it, was basically exactly the same as the "character" she "played" in the "show." Again, direct quote from the movie: Dale: "I'm amazed this thing actually flies. And you know how to fly it." Gadget: "Yeah, I guess my character from the old show and my character in real life are basically exactly the same." Dale: "Yeah, I guess so." *Snore*)
Watching this movie is kind of like what it would be like if you watched a movie starring Sarah Michelle Gellar, David Boreanaz, Alyson Hannigan, Nicholas Brendan, Charisma Carpenter, Anthony Stewart Head, etc. all playing themselves, openly talking about how they were the actors on the TV show Buffy the Vampire Slayer almost 30 years ago, and then they all went on a vaguely Buffy the Vampire Slayer-ish adventure together in the "real life" world of the movie. (And... now that I've written that out, I'd probably actually watch something like that, too.)
Still, despite the gripes, I'd recommend it, on the whole. Just don't go into it expecting high art or anything.
[1] - I mean, you're not going to see references to something like Homestar Runner (as rad as that would've been) or anything in this movie, for example.
