Review: The new Chip ‘N Dale movie is fun forging classic games, cartoons

Traditionally, when Disney movies miss theaters and go straight to video, that’s not a good sign. That has changed somewhat now that the Disney + content beast needs to be fed, but the company still distinguishes between “triple TV” as The Mandalorian and “cheap children’s films” such as Air Bud series.

Therefore, today’s premiere of Disney + Chip ‘N Dale: Rescue Rangers–restarting with a PG rating with a bit of pre-screening in the press – led us to assume the worst, despite its comedic pedigree. The Lonely Island (“Lazy Sunday”, “Mother Lover”) is in all the titles of the film, but how much of pushing the boundaries of the group Saturday night live Can the job survive the family requirements to run directly to Disney +?

I’m here with surprisingly good news. Chip and Dale is a self-taught comedy game that families will appreciate. Moreover, he knows exactly when and how to play with references to games, cartoons and pop culture of the 80s and 90s, without losing the development of character and physical comedy.

Men’s undressing time: Just a few minutes (but with a PG rating, I swear)

The film is Disney’s best hybrid of live action, CGI and hand-drawn animation, with the main characters Chip (voiced by John Muleney) and Dale (voiced by Andy Samberg), each offering different twists on modern animation. Chip combines 3D imaging with a filter with shading of cel, hand-drawn strokes and deliberately narrowed animation speeds to look like a vivid 2D cartoon, complemented by delicious notes of environmental occlusion and rebound light rendering.

Dale, as part of a joke in the film, received a “CGI operation” and emerges as a fully 3D depicted chipmunk. The film begins with the approach of his disproportionate eyes and other strange quirks in the valley for a comedic effect, but this quickly softens and as the film focuses on emotional, child-friendly relationships between Chipmunks, Dale ultimately looks pretty good with his animation , stand out shiny eyes.

Slight spoilers are coming, but we have in mind how easily some of the gags in this movie break.

Samberg’s introductory account suggests that the phrase “Chip ‘N Dale” is likely to remind viewers of several things – and then flashes a PG-rated image of male strippers. The script and visual jokes of the film do a masterful job of making similar references to children’s heads or blinking and you’ll miss them in the worlds of games and cartoons.

The most howling things in the movie are pounding Disney’s favorite properties and Disney competes equally. In fact, so much so that I looked at the whole credit to see exactly who he was grateful to for allowing their biggest franchises to be either passively and aggressively mocked, or outright, uh, melted into this movie. While some jokes go back to the earliest days of the Disney movie catalog, the majority will land for all the parents in the room who grew up in Gen-X or older millennial camps. This is probably not surprising for a film whose main characters come from the Disney Afternoon Collection by characters from the late 80’s. If you can imagine a cartoon that appeared or competed with Disney at the time, it would probably appear here in obvious or subtle ways.

Mulani and Samberg double the archetype of their two characters: Chip is brainy and assertive as a leader, but also stubborn in the mud to push the boundaries, while Dale prefers impulsive and stupid solutions to serious problems, albeit with some tumultuous insecurities. We see each protagonist move from fame from the early ’90s to his “adult” life over the next 25 years or so before being forced to reunite. Their old teammate Monterey Jack has gone through the wrong moneylender and Chip and Dale decide to bury their ten-year feud to make a little rescue and observation. (In one of the storylines, Mulani’s Chip expresses an opinion on Monterey’s problems, and if you’re familiar with Mulani’s trials and tribulations in real life, you can smile grimly the same way I did in those moments.)