Chip n' Dale Rescue Rangers is better than you might expect

[Trixie_One]

First big caveat, is that it's better than average only if you're in your mid-30's to mid-40's. Yes this is utterly mad that Disney made a film so exclusively catering to such an age bracket featuring two rodents but it happened, and it's pretty great.

Two other caveats.

There's some angry noise on social media that it is disrespectful to the real life story of how Disney treated the actor who played Peter Pan. I'd make the case that I didn't know that story before, now I do thanks to this film alluding to that story, and I'd call that a good thing rather than something to be mad at the film about.

Other is that it's not hand drawn animation. While obviously not being cell shaded would be better. Thing is though is that this is a straight to Disney Plus film and hand drawn animation is expensive, really, really expensive. Even more so to do Roger Rabbit again to that level of quality to be found in that wonderful film, and the cell shading is at least servicible most of the time so I can deal. This is probably the closest we're ever going to get to a Roger Rabbit 2 so I don't see a lot of point complaining that it's not an imaginary idealized film that likely these days could never be made anyway. It's also not got the alluding to real life history that Roger Rabbit played off so well. It does at least though dip its toe into enough implied darkness for me to call it a valiant effort.

Okay one more is the hostility to anything overly 'meta' these days. I get that, it's overused, and often done badly. I really do think it's done well here. I've seen other people say this elsewhere and I'll repeat it here is that this feels like Ready Player One or Space Jam 2 made by creatives who actually care. It's no where near to being an all Disney over celebratory fest either like Wreck It Ralph 2 and instead seems more intent on celebrating the medium that is animation in general.

Leaving those caveats aside this thing is worth watching alone for the sheer number of deep cuts to be found in this that are just incredible. Try not to spoil yourself by looking them up before hand as then you're losing a lot of the fun to be found here by catching them as you go. Plot is basically whatever. The film's humour and those deep cuts though more than make up for it.