Awfully Good: Cool World with Brad Pitt, Kim Basinger

Last Updated on August 5, 2021

Is the new TOM AND JERRY movie not really your speed? Here’s another animated-live action hybrid that you can stream from home…

Cool World (1992)

Director: Ralph Bakshi
Stars: Brad Pitt, Kim Basinger, Gabriel Byrne

“Hey, that ROGER RABBIT movie was great!”

“Yeah, but what if Jessica Rabbit actually f*cked Eddie Valentine? That’s what people really wanted, right?”

“…”

I absolutely cannot believe I watched COOL WORLD when I was eight years old. Thankfully, most of its adult themes and R-rated jokes went over my head… or I just internalized and suppressed them to an unhealthy degree. (This would explain a lot.) I mean, I definitely remember having uncomfortable, confusing feelings about a sexed-up animated Kim Basinger after watching this…

Eight-year old Jason watching this movie for the first time.

And that’s pretty much the reason why this baffling movie doesn’t work. What was clearly intended to be a sleazy R-rated film that mixed live action and animation for an adult audience was suddenly repackaged as a tamer, more kid-friendly production. It predictably ended up being a weird, schizophrenic mess—one full of slapstick and silliness set against risque storylines and adult themes—that just does not work at all. The final film did get a PG-13 rating, but this was definitely sold as a flick for younger audiences back in 1992, trying to capitalize on the success of WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT?

COOL WORLD marks legendary animator Ralph Bakshi’s first attempt at working for a major studio without full creative control, an experience that ended so badly, the director went into semi-retirement and never made another feature film. Bakkshi (WIZARDS, FIRE AND ICE, and the 1978 LORD OF THE RINGS) originally envisioned COOL WORLD as a horror movie about the child of a cartoon mother and a live-action father who travels to the real world to seek revenge on the human parent that created him. The story of how that concept became this disaster of a movie depends on who you ask. Bakshi said the studio had the screenplay completely rewritten behind his back “into a PG piece of shit” and didn't give it to him until the first day filming. Others claimed Bakshi was in over his head and so difficult the studio had to threaten to sue him to complete the film. When it came to the lead role, the director wanted to cast Drew Barrymore, but was forced to hire the more bankable Kim Basinger, who demanded the film be toned down even more so she could have a movie to take to hospitals and visit sick children. There’s also an amazing story, offered repeatedly by Bakshi himself in interviews, that he got so frustrated in post-production he punched executive producer (and son of the president of Paramount Pictures) Frank Mancuso Jr., which is the reason he got blackballed from Hollywood and never worked again.

The only thing we do know, as evidenced by the final product, is that eventually the studio won out and the original horror film was pared down to be more suitable for all ages.

A not-so-subtle nod to Paramount.

Which is a very weird thing to do for a movie that’s about an animated femme fatale seducing a man from the real world so she can bang him, pretty much the only element of Bakshi’s original idea that survived. And make no mistake, even in its neutered form, COOL WORLD is entirely about sex. The one and only rule of the titular location is that Noids (humans) do not have sex with Doodles (cartoons). Brad Pitt’s character, a human detective living in Cool World, exists solely to enforce this law. Honestly, most of this movie is Brad Pitt trying to convince Gabriel Byrne not to f*ck a cartoon, Brad Pitt dealing with the frustration of not being able to f*ck his own cartoon girlfriend, and everyone dealing with the aftermath of a cartoon getting f*cked.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. The film opens with Pitt as a World War II vet who makes it back from the frontlines alive, only to immediately be nearly killed on his motorcycle by a drunk driver. Somehow this translates to him becoming a sex detective in a magical cartoon world. (Don’t ask me.) Fifty years later, Gabriel Byrne is a comic book artist being released from jail. Why is he in jail? There's a line that he murdered the man he caught in bed with his wife, but his prison sentence is never mentioned again and has no real bearing on the story.

Anyways, Gabriel Byrne is the creator of the Cool World comics, the characters and ideas for which come to him in his dreams, which are getting more real and interactive every day. It turns out these dreams are the actual Cool World reaching out to him, particularly his favorite creation, a curvy sex bomb named Holli Would. Holli uses her animated feminine wiles to try to convince Byrne to sleep with her, but Pitt keeps showing up to stop them from doing it. It turns out if a real person sleeps with a cartoon, said cartoon will turn into a real person, kind of like a 3D-rendering STD. And apparently this will destroy the fine line between the animated world and the real world, which would end life as we know it.

So of course this happens. I mean, who wouldn't do it with an animated Kim Basinger? Just look at h—ohgodwhatswrongwithme…

"This better not awaken anything in me."

It’s honestly not a terrible idea for a movie. You can sort of see the seeds of an interesting story here and there, especially one that would be really cool in an animated-live action hybrid format. Cool World itself has some great character designs and worldbuilding, particularly for fans of Bakshi’s style. I also love how they handled the practical set design for the 2D world by blowing up background drawings and using them as sets and props instead of doing mattes for every scene. It gives life and depth to the world when the real actors interact with it, not to mention it was probably a much cheaper alternative.

The animation itself is hit and miss. Holli Would looks great and feels alive, using Bakshi’s standard rotoscoping techniques. However, the budget and production woes clearly affected everything else. The hybrid style is not always as successful, with eyelines and interactions between the human characters seeming a little off, like they’re not existing in the same place convincingly. There’s also a lot of random animation and interstitial segments of varying quality, with constant hijinks and overlapping images that make it feel like a bad acid trip. Ironically, this is where Bakshi gets to shine though, in the side characters and background gags that really have nothing to do with the actual story.

Oddly, not the weirdest thing to come out of Gabriel Byrne’s crotch that day.

Bakshi has said one of his biggest regrets with COOL WORLD was the casting that was forced on him and it’s not hard to see why. Kim Basinger is fine as the voice of Holli Would, but once she becomes a real person, she delivers a terrible Razzie-nominated performance that just misses the tone in pretty much every scene. It really brings down the second half of the movie. Gabriel Byrne, on the other hand, has the opposite problem. He’s a great actor, but here he’s given the biggest nothingburger of a protagonist, a character with pretty much no personality or motivation outside of wanting to get laid. He’s stupid and selfish throughout the entire movie, and then does one good deed at the end so another character can say, “He’s fulfilling his destiny! He’s becoming a hero!”

Unsurprisingly, it’s most fun watching a young, unseasoned Brad Pitt as the sex dectetive who should’ve been the real hero of the film. He’s tasked with delivering some truly bad, sometimes embarrassing lines, and does what he can with the material. His love story is probably the one part of the film that was not completely botched. And it’s also fun to spot some of famous Brad Pitt mannerisms that the actor would later become famous for.

”Don’t do it, Pitt. Don’t fall in love with a costar again…”

While there are a few elements in COOL WORLD that sort of work, the film really doesn’t do anything worthwhile with them. Bakshi clearly checked out after the studio screwed him over, so there’s no sense that anyone really cared about the final product. Everyone involved seems to be sleepwalking through their roles, which is kind of impressive considering it takes place in a fantasy world with limitless imagination. Some of it is too childish for grown ups, other parts too adult for kids, and a lot of it is straight nightmare inducing. It’s probably best viewed as just an entry into the annals of WTF? Cinema and an oddity that makes for more interesting behind-the-camera stories than one in front of it.