Christy by Request — Who Framed Roger Rabbit

It’s been a long time since I’ve seen “Who Framed Roger Rabbit” — probably since it came out 30 years ago. I fondly recall watching it with my dad at the now-defunct UA Warner Center in Woodland Hills, the location of so many of my Valley Girl movie memories.

But as much as I enjoyed Robert Zemeckis’ high-energy extravaganza back then, I didn’t truly appreciate how ahead of its time it was until I became a film critic many years later. What Zemeckis did in blending animated characters in a live-action setting was seamless and super high-tech, and it set the stage for the groundbreaking visual effects that would become his trademark in ambitious films like “Forrest Gump” and “The Polar Express.” It was nominated for six Academy Awards and won three, for editing, sound effects editing and — deservedly — visual effects.

So when “Roger Rabbit” came up this week as the latest Christy by Request title, the suggestion of Twitter follower @maryfosterford (who must be a Hogwarts student because she lists her location as Platform 9 3/4), I was excited to watch it with my own child. I recalled it being a bit racy, though, probably because of the impossibly curvaceous presence of Jessica Rabbit. But Nicolas has seen a lot more movies than most 8 1/2-year-old kids. And besides, this was rated PG.

I needn’t have worried. Nic became bored about halfway through, got up and decided he’d rather play by himself in his room than watch this film with me. (He does this a lot; he’s an only child. I don’t take it personally.) But before he left, he announced: “I like the baby a lot ’cause you think he’s really cute but he’s actually a person who curses and smokes.” And who could blame him? The animated Baby Herman’s true, crass nature is one of the movie’s many wonderful surprises.

What struck me immediately — and then over and over again — in re-watching “Who Framed Roger Rabbit” is the intricacy of detail, the great care Zemeckis took with all the small things within this wild, grand setting. Technology has advanced significantly since 1988, but “Roger Rabbit” doesn’t just hold up, it wows. The opening sequence is dazzling in its pacing — the danger Baby Herman finds himself in within a seemingly wholesome American kitchen, and how that ratchets up little by little until it explodes into a chain reaction of violence and pain, all of it falling upon the beleaguered Roger Rabbit in classic slapstick-comedy fashion.

The squash-and-stretch look of the characters is pure Looney Tunes, but Zemeckis cranks up the peril to an even more knowingly insane level. And the prevalence of Acme products throughout the film, the preferred brand of one Wile E. Coyote, Super Genius, is a nice touch. But then the whole movie — which screenwriters Jeffrey Price and Peter S. Seaman adapted from Gary K. Wolf’s novel — is just layer upon layer of meta humor. It’s a send-up of vintage film noir, of the Hollywood studio system, of classic animation and of Los Angeles itself. It’s a movie that knows it’s a movie, and it knows that you know it’s a movie, and that you love movies enough to catch the many movie references sprinkled throughout.

Not unlike the ’80s virtual reality romp “Ready Player One” — which “Roger Rabbit” producer Steven Spielberg directed — much of the film aims to entertain you by referring to other kinds of movies and characters you already know. These can be clever, and the chuckles of recognition can be fun for a while: Hey, look, it’s the dancing brooms from “Fantasia.” It’s Yosemite Sam cooling off his burning butt in a puddle of water. It’s Donald Duck and Daffy Duck doing a dueling pianos bit at a speakeasy. Eventually the novelty of the experience wears off, but the breathless energy keeps chugging along at full steam.

Somewhere in the middle of all this pop culture reverie is a plot, which is also rather familiar. Hollywood, 1947: There’s been a high-profile murder, and superstar cartoon actor Roger Rabbit (voiced by Charles Fleischer) is accused of being the killer. Only hard-boiled, hard-drinking detective Eddie Valiant (the ever-reliable Bob Hoskins) can get to the bottom of the crime and prove Roger’s innocence. But Eddie’s got a sordid past of his own, naturally, and his own heartache to navigate: namely, the death of his beloved brother at the hands of a ‘toon. Roger’s sultry, buxom wife Jessica (voiced by an uncredited but unmistakable Kathleen Turner) figures into the mix as a possible suspect. And it’s clear that the fearsome Judge Doom (Christopher Lloyd, re-teaming with Zemeckis after the smash “Back to the Future”) is, as the name would suggest, not a good dude.

Doom’s hellish vision of a Los Angeles full of freeways, gas stations and billboards, is — of course — exactly what has happened to this city over the past 70 years. (“Who needs a car in L.A.?” Eddie wonders aloud as he hitches a ride on the back of a streetcar. “We got the best public transportation system in the world!”) But among the many billboards dotting the streets of L.A., you’ll routinely see ones for summer blockbusters exactly like “Who Framed Roger Rabbit,” and you have for years. As is often the case in self-mocking studio fare, they try to have their Acme exploding cake and eat it, too.

It all gets a little breathless and overwhelming by the end, especially during the frantic climax as Eddie is trying to outsmart Judge Doom’s hyena goons by making them laugh themselves to death. But then again, subtlety isn’t exactly the point in a movie full of giant magnets and acid-spewing ray guns. By the time veteran voice actor Mel Blanc shows up as Porky Pig to deliver his iconic closing line: “Th-th-th-that’s all, folks!” it really, truly is time to go. But it was fun for a while.