Now, I'm going to try to convince you not to watch this "film". Firstly, you have uncharismatic animated characters and poorly acting from the live action ones. Secondly, the story seems like written by someone on crack, who was also pretty stupid. And finally, The animation quality is even worse than previous Ralph Bakshi's films (most of wich I didn't like). Why watch this? Only the truly crazy can say this movie is any good.

One of the biggest flops of 1992 and one of the worse animated films ever made. Dogged with multiple problems including script changes, antagonisms between stars and directors and director with producers (see lupercal’s review below).

I'll be honest it was hard watching this just in order to find a decent image to use in the profile, it was harder to actually sit down and watch it properly. Almost nothing here is likeable, the acting is wooden and you can’t help but think that if you had to watch a live action-animation film, that it really should have been Roger Rabbit.

The main characters are either uninteresting or un-likeable, Harris would have been fine, but for the fact that I find Brad Pitt rather uncharismatic. Deeb has character problems in that this character doesn’t have any thought behind him, his criminal history seems tacked on and pointless, since it never goes anywhere. Gabriel Byrne is wasted in a film where, for the most part, he is looking glaze-eyed at the scenery. Holli is one-dimensional, a selfish, manipulator who is just as much trash on the outside as she is inside.

Indeed there were only two characters that I enjoyed and felt any kind of emotion with. The first was Nails, whose pluckiness and neuroses made him more likeable than anyone else. The other was the bunny that loses at dice and throws a angry fit about it down at the police station, although the later has more to do with the fact that the bunny is cute.

Rotoscoping rears it ugly head once more, only this time the film seems intent on hiding it behind chaotic but pointless random animated characters running across the screen, in the hope of attraction the eye away from the main characters. This is quite a successful scheme, until you realise what it’s for. The Non-rotoscoped, secondary characters are more successful and sometimes smoothly animated, but their designs are merely shadows of what Bakshi seems capable off.

Even though a studio funded this film, they still didn’t seem to give Bakshi a lot of money. This shows up a great deal in the background animation, as it tends to repeat something terrible; also the backgrounds are painted on real life boards with other cardboard cut-outs for props and such. One example is when Harris parks his car the camera moves away so it disappears off camera, when the camera next sees the car, it is a cut-out. All these shortcuts wouldn’t be so bad if the angles didn’t blatantly show this up.

The plot is puerile and unfulfilled, with a PG-13 rating the whole premise of the film is unobtainable, the promise of the storyline is never reached in any satisfactory way. It deserves it notoriety and bad reputation, the director himself hates it and gave up animation because of it, a big warning sign if ever there was one.

If I feel the need to watch a Bakshi film, I'd stick with some of his earlier work instead.

This is simply the worst animated film I have ever seen in my entire life,there is nothing to warrant even one star.This film is nothing but a mess of wooden characters, bad animation,and a poorly conceived plot. This film could have been good in the right hands,namely Ralph Bakshi's hands.The studio executives changed the entire film without Bakshi's knowledge and the final result was this animated abortion. The film started good at the begining, Frank Harris being sucked into the "Cool World" and eventually a detective there and that's were the qaulity ends. The film goes back and forth between the cartoonist Jack Deebs in the real world,who is given no detail, and the poorly animated and un-funny "Cool World". Then all of sudden at the finale, Jack Deebs is given a massive dose of character development at the very last minute and actaully ends up being the hero. Yes,this is film is actually that sloppy.I think I need to alert the Guantanamo Bay prison camp, they have obviously overlooked "Cool World" as a great form of torture.

'Cool World' is probably unique amongst Ralph Bakshi's films, in that even he doesn't like it. He even accused an interviewer of cruelty for bringing the subject up. Which is ironic, because it probably made more money than any of his previous films, though the critics didn't like it much.

It's easy to see why such a cranky individualist as Bakshi would be unhappy with what happened to this film. In his original concept, the main human and animated characters have a baby, which is a hybrid monster - half animated - half alive. "I wanted to do the first animated horror film", he later said. At the inception of the project he was delighted that people with money were letting him do his own thing.

Naturally the studios, who for once were giving Bakshi a budget that he could do something with, found this completely unacceptable, and the script and entire concept of the movie was re-written for him in mid-production. This resulted in Bakshi punching producer (and Paramount boss's son) Frank Mancuso Jr. in the mouth.

Worse was to come. Kim Bassinger (Holli) thought the new, clean version was great (Bakshi claimed she thought she would be able to show it sick children in hospital). Bakshi apparently couldn't stand her, and would fight with her constantly on set. He later stated that Mancuso probably had his hand up Bassinger's pants.

Effectively this is the one Bakshi film where Bakshi has to surrender some creative control to the guys with the money. Bakshi wanted to make a Bakshi film. Paramount wanted to make something that would make money... y'know, like Roger Rabbit.

Predictably the result is neither a dazzling big studio classic, or a memorable, low-budget , quirky Bakshi cult film. I remember watching this when it came out on VHS with two housemates. One declared it was good. The other thought it pretty much sucked. I'm inclined to the latter's POV, though with reservations.

Had someone thrown a large amount of money at Bakshi and said 'go make your movie' (which I might add has NEVER happened), then 'Cool World' could indeed have been cool. It does have the exoskeleton of a good movie about it. An adult, logical, dark and troubling extension of Who Framed Roger Rabbit. I'm sure he would have made up in style what he lacked in technique. Instead we get a faltering, ultimately not very interesting and rather puerile plot, which additionally doesn't come near the technical genius of Roger Rabbit.

It's not a train wreck - I don't even think it's QUITE RB's worst film - but it has little of the feel of a Bakshi film, even a bad one. And it's Bakshi's distinctive style that kept me coming back for more, even when I was disappointed more often than not after 'Wizards'.

This was Bakshi first feature film in nearly 10 years, and he hasn't made one since. As he put it, 'Cool World' was where he "learned about corporate animation".

After that he took up painting.