Most people willing to write a bad review of Cool World admit that they like it. I like it too, but it's unwatchable. It's full of amateurish moments: live-action characters dizzyingly slouching around sets composed of cardboard cut-outs, animations superimposed on live-action footage that vanishes halfway through, and acting so hammy you'd think you've been invited to a hog roast.

What strikes me, though, is that the conceit of the film feels so regressive compared to Bakshi's previous films. The live-action/animation hybrids of Heavy Traffic and Coonskin were seamless because the cartoon characters were supposed to be as real as the live-action characters but depicted as such to reveal a cruder, more base aspect of their personalities. The satire is certainly still there in Cool World: the cartoon world is really no different from the real world, albeit with everything externalized. But filling it with anarchic cartoon shenanigans rather than sharp caricatures just dilutes the premise.

It's almost as if an alternative film plays in the mind of someone watching Cool World, as if the film's bravado-painted world is so inspired that one can ignore the proceedings of the film and replace them with their own narrative. It's not surprising that test audiences suggested the film be raunchier than the PG-13 offering that got trimmed down and regurgitated on us.



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