Who Framed Roger Rabbit (film)
Who Framed Roger Rabbit is a comedy-drama-noir film directed by Robert Zemeckis, and executive produced by Steven Spileberg. The film was produced by Amblin Entertainment and was mostly shot in London. The animation director of the film is Richard Williams. The film was released by Disney (Touchstone Pictures) in North America on June 22, 1988 and became not only a box-office success (the second highest-grossing film of the year, behind only Rain Man) but was critically acclaimed and as a result has earned a 98% approval rating on film aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes. The film is rated PG by the motion Picture Association of America.
Plot
In 1947, cartoon characters, commonly called "toons", are living beings who act out cartoons in the same way that human actors make live-action productions. Toons interact freely with humans and live in an area near Hollywood called Toontown. R. K. Maroon is the human owner of Maroon Cartoon studios; Roger Rabbit is a fun-loving toon rabbit, one of Maroon's stars; Roger's wife Jessica is a gorgeous toon woman; and Baby Herman is Roger's costar, a 50-year-old toon who looks like an infant. Marvin Acme is the prank-loving owner of Toontown and the Acme Corporation.
Maroon hires private detective Eddie Valiant to investigate rumors that Jessica is having an affair. Eddie and his brother Teddy used to be friends of the toon community, but Eddie has hated them, and has been drinking heavily, since his brother Teddy was killed by a toon a few years earlier. When he shows Roger photographs of Jessica "cheating" on him by playing patty-cake with Acme, Roger becomes distraught and runs away. This makes him the main suspect when Acme is found murdered the next day. At the crime scene, Eddie meets Judge Doom and his Toon Patrol of weasel henchmen. Although toons are impervious to physical abuse, Doom has discovered that they can be killed by submerging them in a mixture of solvents he refers to as "Dip." He demonstrates this to Valiant by lowering a living cartoon shoe into a drum of Dip until it dissolves, leaving only a smear of paint floating on top.
Baby Herman insists that Acme's will, which is missing, bequeaths Toontown to the toons. If the will is not found by midnight, Toontown will be sold to Cloverleaf Industries, which recently bought the Pacific Electric system of trolley cars. One of Eddie's photos shows the will in Acme's pocket, proving Baby Herman's claim. After Roger shows up at his office professing his innocence, Eddie investigates the case with help from his girlfriend Dolores while hiding Roger from the Toon Patrol. Jessica tells Eddie that Maroon blackmailed her into compromising Acme, and Eddie learns that Maroon is selling his studio to Cloverleaf. Maroon explains to Eddie that Cloverleaf will not buy his studio unless they can also buy Acme's gag-making factory. His plan was to use the photos to blackmail Acme into selling. Before he can say more, he is killed by an unseen assassin and Eddie sees Jessica fleeing the scene. Thinking that she is the killer, Eddie pursues her into Toontown. When he finds her, she explains that Doom killed Maroon and Acme in an attempt to take over Toontown.
Eddie, Jessica, and Roger are captured by Doom and his weasels and held at the Acme Factory, where Doom reveals his plan. Since he owns Cloverleaf and Acme's will has yet to turn up, he will take control of Toontown and destroy it with a mobile Dip-sprayer to make room for a freeway, then force people to use it by dismantling the trolley fleet. With Roger and Jessica tied up, Eddie performs a vaudeville act that makes the weasels literally die of laughter and confronts Doom. Doom survives being run over by a steamroller, revealing that he himself is a toon and admitting that he killed Teddy. Eddie eventually dissolves Doom in Dip by opening the drain on the Dip machine. As toons and the police arrive, Eddie discovers that an apparently blank piece of paper on which Roger wrote a love poem to Jessica is actually Acme's will, written in disappearing/reappearing ink. Eddie kisses Roger - proving that he has regained his sense of humor - and the toons celebrate their victory.