Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		1.5
Overall		3.5

Cool World Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Stephen Larson September 23, 2022

Ralph Bakshi's ninth feature Cool World (1992) is a strange cinematic cocktail that combines stylistic tropes from Forties film noir, Fifties Hollywood musicals, and a menagerie of animated characters. Bakshi hadn't made any films in nearly a decade and was itching to return to animation after an industry surge of animated productions in the late Eighties. Bakshi, his wife, and kids lived several years in a country house near Westchester County, New York. Bakshi spent much of his time painting in a barn. Towards the end of the decade, Bakshi met with Paramount producer Frank Mancuso Jr. to discuss an animated horror feature. Mancuso repelled at the idea because he had gotten his fill of horror after producing seven of the eight Friday the 13th films. Mancuso countered with the concept of a cartoonist and detective meeting in an alternative universe, a "cool world." Bakshi embraced the concept. Bakshi told Movies USA magazine writer Noë Gold that he pitched the story idea to Paramount production executive Sid Ganis, who responded, "You know what? We want things that are different; we’re not going to find anything that’s as different as this. Go ahead and do it."

According to Cinefantastique's Daniel Schweiger, Larry Gross (48 Hrs.; Streets of Fire) was Cool World's original scribe. The first draft of his script was "repolished" by Mark Victor and Michael Grais, both of whom co-wrote Poltergeist (1982). Los Angeles Times columnist Frank Rose interviewed Gross about his original vision. “This film is an elaborate Freud­ian castration-anxiety dream," Gross explained. “[Comic strip artist Frank Deebs] fantasizes [animated nymphet Holli Would], he invents her and she takes on a life of her own. It’s an allegory of male fear." Bakshi recounted to San Francisco Examiner staff writer John Stanley that he rewrote the animated sequences and it basically became a whole new script. In a recent interview recorded for this Shout Select disc, Bakshi insinuates that his version essentially got rewritten. Speculation persists that Bakshi and Mancuso had a terrible falling out over the final product. While that's a possibility, some of my research suggests that Bakshi was given free reign by Paramount, at least for a while. Iain Blair, Rose's colleague at the Times, interviewed Bakshi at the time of the film's summer release. While Bakshi acknowledges that he had "a hell of a time making this film," he was fairly unrestricted throughout the production process: "We had a decent budget [$28 million], a lot of support from the studio and a free rein to try pretty much anything we wanted, however wacky the idea seemed."

For the casting of his leads, Bakshi got his wishes. It seems that both he and Mancuso were agreeable on Gabriel Byrne. Kim Basinger was Bakshi's first choice and she signed on without hesitation. There are those who feel she was too old to play blonde bombshell Holli Would but five years later, she portrayed a beautiful prostitute in L.A. Confidential and rode it all the way to a Golden Globe and an Oscar. For the casting of Brad Pitt as Detective Frank Harris, it's important to keep in mind that the role was offered to him prior to his success in Thelma and Louise (1991), as Trish Dietch Rohrer reported in Entertainment Weekly. (Interestingly, Bakshi confided to Rohrer that Paramount initially wanted Matt Dillon for the same role. Bakshi called him "also great.") Commentators on Cool World have called it Pitt's worst movie or among his weakest but his performance impressed Robert Redford. In fact, Bakshi divulged to the Chronicle's Stanley that Redford visited the Paramount studio thrice to watch either Pitt's audition or the dailies featuring the then-young actor. That was enough to convince Redford to hire Pitt for A River Runs Through It.

Mr. Harris, meet Holli Would.

Jack Deebs (Gabriel Byrne) is an ex-convict who spent time in the slammer for bumping off his wife's lover. Prison time gave Deebs the chance to draw a strip called "Cool World." Deebs finishes a large part of it around 1992. The film's 1942 prologue is set in Nevada where Frank Harris (Brad Pitt) is a returning WWII serviceman. He's enjoying a breezy motorcycle ride along the desert road until he gets in a freak accident, which he survives. One of the characters in Deebs's strip is somehow aware of Harris and teleports him to the animated domain of Cool World. Meanwhile, Deebs is also sucked into Cool World by his creation, Holli Would, who wants to seduce Deebs so she can teleport herself to the real world and assume human form. There's a spoken rule that Noids (humans) shouldn't have sex with Doodles (cartoons) but the free-spirited Holli Would could care less. Harris is less committed to returning to the world he once knew but with outlaw Holli Would departing, he feels an exit from Cool World may be necessary, too.

When the picture arrived in theaters, critics classified the action and characters within Cool World as an incoherent mess. My beef with this section of the film doesn't have to do so much with the animation itself, which is crafted with a lot of detail, but with the Doodles. There aren't any memorable ones that stand out. When I first watched Cool World, I was disappointed overall with how the full narrative was strung together. But watching it a second time, I was pleased with the direction it went during its second half, which I won't spoil for those who haven't seen it.

Cool World Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Shout Select's "Collector's Edition" of Cool World comes on an MPEG-4 AVC-encoded BD-50 (disc size: 35.81 GB). The boutique label has not issued a slip cover. Presented in its original theatrical exhibition ratio of 1.85:1, the transfer derives from a new 4K scan of the original camera negative, approved by director Ralph Bakshi. The image moves miles ahead of the 2003 Paramount DVD-5. I also examined many still frames of the Shout on a 4K monitor and couldn't pick out any print flaws or traces of digital sharpening. The transfer retains a fairly thick layer of grain. The animation sequences don't appear glossy (which they shouldn't). My video score is 4.75/5.00. Shout has encoded the feature at a mean video bitrate of 33000 kbps.

Shout provides twelve scene selections for the 102-minute film.

Cool World Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Shout has supplied a surround remix in DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (2929 kbps, 24-bit) and the original Dolby Spectral Recording, which is rendered here as a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Stereo mix (1650 kbps, 24-bit). Spoken words delivered by the "Noids" are consistently understandable as is dialogue by most of the "Doodles." Composer Mark Isham wrote a wonderful jazz score to Little Man Tate a year earlier and has outdone himself here. The pristine clarity of the individual musical cues is equal on both the 5.1 track here and the remastered score album released by Spanish label Quartet Records in 2015. Saxophone soloists Nigel Hitchcock and Rick Keller are outstanding. The score has some Big Band sounds to it. Quartet released practically every note Isham recorded and listening to the complete score, I was able to gain a better appreciation of its brilliance. Sax, tuba, double bass, drums, and trumpet are heard throughout most of the cues. The film's sound track also contains various ballads by Brian Eno, Moby, Harold Arlen and Johnny Mercer (with Frank Sinatra Jr. performing "That Old Black Magic" in the movie). Hearing David Bowie perform "Real Cool World" on the end credits is a final treat to a skillfully constructed sound track.

Shout includes optional English SDH for the feature.

Cool World Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• NEW The Wild Minds of Cool World (21:58, 1080p) - a relatively brief retrospective mini-doc featuring new interviews with star Kim Basinger, producer Frank Mancuso Jr., and director Ralph Bakshi. Basinger talks about Bakshi's vision for the movie, how she approached her character of Holli Would, the difficulty of speaking to animated figures before they're added later, and how Cool World was ahead of its time. Mancuso discusses how Paramount and Bakshi took divergent approaches to the project and how he tried to make compromises between the two. He defends the film and explains how his role was to be a responsible partner to the studio. Bakshi displays several of his original presentation drawings throughout this program. He also addresses the rewrite of the script and Paramount's minimal advertising campaign. Pitt was Bakshi's choice. (He'd seen Thelma and Louise). Bakshi appears proud of the animation he and his collaborators designed. But he remains unhappy with the film's tone. He wanted it to be the first animated horror feature, which would have been accompanied with more noirish qualities. Optional English subtitles would have been nice since Bakshi is hard to hear at times.

• Trailers (3:49 total, all upconverted to 1080p) - two of Paramount's original theatrical trailers for Cool World. The first is a full trailer and second a teaser. The latter is surreal and more imaginative than the "final" trailer. Both are displayed in 1.33:1 and come with a Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo mix (192 kbps). Neither has been restored. The image looks fair.

Cool World Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

A warning to viewers who haven't seen Cool World before: don't expect a blending of live action and animation on the same scale or canvas as Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988). While Bakshi mentioned in at least one interview that the Zemeckis picture inspired him to start animating films again, neither he nor Mancuso have cited it as formal influence. Bakshi explained his wide-ranging visual conception for Cool World to the LA Times' Iain Blair in July 1992: "I like to mix all kinds of styles, so there's every­thing from classical, Disney-type animation to some real off-the-wall stuff." I believe that this film has confounded and dumbfounded viewers since so much going on in the frame. It warrants repeat viewings just to study its design. Shout Select has produced a fresh-looking transfer and a very fine lossless audio presentation of the hyperactive sound track. Extras are rather bare with a good but all-to-brief retrospective mini-doc. Still, a A FAIRLY ENTHUSIASTIC RECOMMENDATION for this global debut of Cool World on Blu-ray.