CHIP ’N’ DALE: RESCUE RANGERS
Cert PG ★★★★ On Disney+ now
Has Disney reached the bottom of the barrel already? After big-budget reboots with Mowgli, Dumbo and Aladdin comes this feature-length comeback for their crime-fighting chipmunks.
If you can half remember their early 90s kids’ TV show Rescue Rangers, Disney figures you are probably the one paying the subscription for their streaming service. And this anarchic, self-aware comedy is one for you.
In a world where ‘toons live alongside humans, unemployed minor celebrity Dale (voiced by Andy Samberg) has just undergone “CG-surgery” in a desperate bid to get his own reboot.
But his former partner has moved on. The still hand-drawn Chip (John Mulaney) has cashed in on his fading celebrity to become the top salesman for Coercive Insurance.
Then they are reunited by their Rescue Rangers co-star Monterey Jack (Eric Bana) who reveals that minor characters are being kidnapped by a criminal organisation led by embittered, middle-aged Peter Pan (Will Arnett).
In a clever riff on LA Confidential, he’s been changing their copyright-protected looks and forcing them to appear in bootleg versions of Disney classics (the cute fish from The Little Mermaid is now the sad star of The Small Fish Lady).
A riot of in-jokes, cameos and a mish-mash of clashing animation styles, the visual gags require a working knowledge of Mike Judge’s Beavis & Butthead and Robert Zemeckis’s dead-eyed Beowulf.
Chip ’N’ Dale aren’t going to win over a new generation but 90s kids may find they’ve got a lot funnier with age.