Director: Joe Johnston
Cast: Rick Moranis, Marcia Strassman, Amy O’Neill, Robert Oliveri
Have I Seen It Before: Oh, sure. I was of that age where I think you’d get fined if you didn’t have the movie on VHS. To this day, I don’t quite understand why Disney+ doesn’t include the Roger Rabbit short Tummy Trouble. Before I could even get into the meat of this review, I had to go track down that short. It just felt weird not including it. Still can’t find Roller Coaster Rabbit that was shown in front of Dick Tracy (1990). It’s just a crime how little Disney uses Roger…
…But I’ll admit that’s probably a topic for some other time.
Did I Like It: It’s weird to take in a movie that you had on regular rotation back in the day but for whatever reason you haven’t seen in years. I see the film originally, and I’m with Nick (Oliveri), always in a world that’s just a little too big, and consumed with the unscrutinized idea that whatever father I happened to have was the only template for how to exist. I watch it in adolescence—because I am of that temperament to not be above watching what is quintessentially a children’s movie—and can see the opportunity of being trapped in a gargantuan backyard for two days with the girl next door as the real icebreaker opportunity that it is.
Now I watch it, and I can’t help but feel a kinship with what—at least on the surface—appears to be just another in a long line of Nutty Professors. What I never seemed to notice before is that Wayne Szalinski (Moranis) is a someone who has probably spent most of his life not quite living up to his potential, at least in a way where he can do both that and pay the mortgage. He’s going all in on his magnum opus—never mind that it’s a shrink ray—and things aren’t working out.
His frustration is real. And that’s the real strength of the film that I either long-since forgot, or never quite understood: The situation is high camp (and aided by an array of special effects that largely work) and yet it’s populated with people that feel something akin to recognizable. Moranis plays the part well, even when the part is occasionally dependent on his face looking funny when there is a magnifying glass right in front of it.