Hello everyone! 🙂
Welcome to ‘Bradley’s Basement’ blog and I’m Tim Bradley!
I purchased this movie for my parents and me to watch over Christmas 2019 – ‘The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle’! I had seen this shown on TV once and have seen a review of it. I took a dare for my parents and me to check it out. I’m glad I took it as we enjoyed watching this film very much.
Rocky and Bullwinkle is based on the classic TV cartoon series ‘The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends’ by Jay Ward from 1959 to 1964. I’ve never seen the cartoon series. Neither has my Dad. Yet it’s something that I would’ve liked to have seen had it been shown to me as a kid.
The original TV show featured a talking squirrel and a talking moose who had adventures fighting against the evil forces of Fearless Leader, Boris Badenoff and Natasha Fatale. The show was well-known for featuring many puns, satire and self-referential humour, often breaking the fourth wall. 🙂
The live-action movie was released in 2000 and starred Robert De Niro as Fearless Leader, Jason Alexander as Boris and Rene Russo as Natasha. The film received mixed reviews and was a box office failure. This explains why I knew nothing about it. It probably wasn’t well-marketed for me in the UK.
Regardless, my parents and I checked this film out on night before New Year’s Eve in 2019. As my parents and I watched the film, I did find myself laughing at many of the satirical humour and jokes featured throughout. A lot of it was zany and felt like a live-action cartoon if that makes any sense. 🙂
It wasn’t like the ‘Looney Tunes’ cartoon movies such as ‘Space Jam’ where it was clearly animated 2D cartoon characters interacting with humans. Rocky and Bullwinkle come into our real world as almost 3D cartoon characters using CGI. It also felt like a traditional 1960s cartoon in a 2000s film. 😀
The story has Rocky and Bullwinkle suddenly thrust out of their cartoon world into the real world where the villainous Fearless Leader, Boris and Natasha attempt to take control of the world with Really Bad Television (RBTV). Rocky and Bullwinkle have to save everybody from becoming zombies.
Rocky is a small blue squirrel that used to have a talent for flying, voiced by the late June Foray. There’s Bullwinkle, voiced by Keith Scott, who mostly sounds dumb when making puns and jokes in the film. Keith Scott is also the voice of the film’s narrator that also comes from the cartoon world. 🙂
The film also features Piper Perabo as FBI agent Karen Sympathy who recruits Rocky and Bullwinkle to help save the world from their three evil enemies. I’ve seen Piper Perabo in the two ‘Cheaper By The Dozen’ movies and she’s been in the Rian Johnson film ‘Looper’ (which I’ve not seen at all! 😀 )
The film also features Randy Quaid as Cappy von Trapment (?!), head of the FBI. There are also cameos of Carl Reiner (who was showrunner of ‘The Dick Van Dyke Show’ didn’t you know? :D) and three cameos of Jonathan Winters. What is he the Harvey Korman of the ‘Star Wars Holiday Special’ here? 😀
There are also cameos of John Goodman; Whoopi Goldberg and Billy Crystal in the film. I’m sure I missed some other important cameos featured in the movie. I was surprised Max Grodénchik and Doug Jones of ‘Star Trek’ fame happen to have cameos in this. I must see this film again to check! 😀
The film also has Rod Biermann as love-struck Swedish guard Ole who falls in love with Karen once she’s been arrested and taken to prison. He has a teeth twinkling smile apparently ( 😀 ) and it was funny when he was still there waiting for Karen to come back for their movie date after she left him.
I’m happy I got ‘The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle’ for my parents and me to watch on Blu-ray. I never saw the cartoon TV show, yet it was great to watch this adaptation of the cartoon in live-action movie form. I recall my Mum and I laughing at the jokes as we were watching the film with Rocky and Bullwinkle in it. Hopefully it won’t be long before seeing it again. It was worth watching! 🙂
Thanks for reading!
Bye for now!
Tim. 🙂
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