Rescuing Disney's Credibility?

Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers.

You ever watch a trailer for a movie you’re not sold on, yet are positively surprised by anyway? That’s happened to me a few times. Most-recently, it happened with this movie released on Disney+ that I was sure would be the biggest, cheapest and most-shameless nostalgia plug ever. I was so sure it wasn’t going to be good that I wrote it off and buried it in my subconscious. Then the reviews popped up, people were praising it, and I was thrown for a loop.

In hindsight, I probably shouldn’t have been so quick to judge. I was one of three people willing to give Ready Player One a chance, and look how that ended up. Besides, sometimes movies you have no expectations for end up being good, so it was unfair to be so harsh. This despite it being a self-obsessed Disney product, right down to the cameos.

I won’t give away too much, since it recently came out, but the premise of Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers is that Chip and Dale are actors who’ve been struggling to make ends meet since their show was cancelled. When an old cast-mate gets kidnapped, Chip and Dale are forced to put their animosity aside and search for him. Together, they uncover a plot that involves all cartoon characters, and even discover some truths about the industry that were kept under wraps. Basically, it’s 2022’s answer to Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

I’m not kidding, as the film includes a cameo from Roger Rabbit himself. But while this concept, the washed-up actor(s) trying to stay relevant, has been done to death, and the constant cameos should warrant an immediate dud, Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers doesn’t let any of its self-referential humour get in the way of its story. Then again, with the writers and director on-board from Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping, I guess that’s to be expected. Still, Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers uses its cameos not as shameless fan-service, but as a way of commenting on the homogeneity of modern Hollywood. This is a movie where “CGI surgery” is the new trend, cheap nostalgia’s a hot commodity and Ugly Sonic (you read that correctly) is an important character. Go figure.

And the film never wastes its cameos and references. The Indiana Jones gag from the trailers? Its serves an in-film purpose. The gag involving Uncanny Valley CGI? Same deal. Even the remade model of Pumba from The Lion King becomes a clever roast of actor Seth Rogen’s over-exposure in animation. You have to see it to believe it.

But outside the gags and jokes, Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers is a darkly-cruel and poignant film. At its heart, it’s about irrelevancy and the psychological damage that can have. It’s also about how fame and diversifying your portfolio can damage relationships, and how difficult it is to fix that. Most-importantly, it’s about how Hollywood commodifies society’s inability to grow up, which is fitting given that the villain’s Peter Pan.

And it works! It works a little too well, such that some jokes are too clever for the movie’s target audience. Nevertheless, adults familiar with these jokes and their hidden meanings will have a great time, myself included. It’s rare that a Disney movie transcends its intended demographic in a clever and poignant way, but Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers pulls it off! Bonus points for incorporating all those cameos, even those from other studios, in a disparaging way without it feeling nasty. (I’m shocked that half of them were even approved.)

Is the movie perfect? Not at all. Aside from the villain being a slap in the face to Peter Pan’s actual voice actor, and the central allegory raising some questions, I found that the emotional moments didn’t land as effectively as they could have. I also think one or two payoffs needed better setups, even if the movie did them well enough. And it would’ve benefitted from being about 5-10 minutes longer, despite being thrown together during the pandemic.

As it stands? This was pleasantly engaging. I laughed a lot, was shocked on a few occasions by its brazenness and even saw potential for a follow-up. It’s rare that a movie that I have almost no expectations for ends up being better than I originally anticipated, but Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers was exactly that. That it’s a lean 98-minutes helps, as that’s not a huge ask as is. I’d say to check it out, but it looks like people already are.

Nevertheless, I think the whole “self-aware meta-humour” sub-genre is overdone. It was cute when Ralph Breaks the Internet and Ready Player One did it, but that was because they played into the wild west that was the online world. Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers, on the other hand, feels a little like overkill. It still worked, and I’m grateful for that, but we need a lot more sincerity in big-budget movies. But that’s me projecting, I suppose…