Chip and Dale

By: Anton Massopust III

“I think it’s time for Chip and Dale Rescue Rangers reboot!” – Dale

If you remember the wonderful Disney Afternoon Cartoon Block when you ran home as a kid to watch the Rescue Rangers and all the other Disney Afternoon friends, you loved those terrific characters and how two little chipmunks, mice and a fly friend solve crimes and defeat villains.

Fast forward to 2022 – The new movie does not follow a lot of that at all. Yes, there is a crime that needs to be solved, but it takes place in the world of “realty” (kind of like Roger Rabbit or Space Jam: A new Legacy). Just like in those movies, there are plenty of cameos. In fact, we are oversaturated with cameos and some don’t even belong to the Disney Brand. I don’t know how or why these cameos are in the film.

In this movie, the reason why the Rescue Rangers stopped making episodes is because Dale gets an offer to star in his own show called: “00Dale.” While he goes off to do his own thing, the show gets cancelled and 00Dale never makes it out of the pilot stage.

This type of pilot is what Disney originally wanted to do with Darkwing Duck. The Rescue Rangers get canceled, so Chip is now selling Insurance and Dale has CGI surgery and is working the convention circuit selling his autograph. There are a lot of other Tunes who are more or less just selling their autograph. The movie sort of shows the ugly side of Hollywood (of being a mean business). The big strong Adventurer Mouse Monterrey Jack needs help because he owes money to a group of gangsters, and his cheese obsession got the better of him. So, the two Chipmunks decide that they needed to solve the crime, so they team up because Monty gets kidnapped and Chip and Dale team up with a human police officer Ellie Steckler (Kiki Layne) who is a big fan of the Rescue Rangers. They find out that Monty has been taken by Sweet Pete (Will Arnett) who is really Peter Pan all grown up. Monterey Jack is going to be headed for a redesign by a computer so he could be sold to those bad low budget animated movies that are copies of everything. The two Chipmunks don’t really know who to trust, even in the police force. Dale eventually recruits Gadget and her husband, to rescue Monty and all the other Toons that this mobster has kidnapped to be shipped overseas.

This is a really, really bad movie. Yes, I get some of the humor, but the jokes fall flat, and it went on too long. Just plain terrible. 

Do we get to see Gadget and Zipper? Being that she is a fan favorite character, they diminish her role with her hardly even being in the movie, and having her marry Zipper, who is a minor character is completely ridiculous. It makes no sense whatsoever. The movie is terrible and there are parts of it that drag on, and on we’ll just terrible jokes and terrible stories. They even make fun of the predictability and rap music. So, in the end they all reappear at a convention together and Darkwing Duck says, “Boo! Where is the Darkwing debut?” Let’s just hope they do better with him.

If you’re a big fan of the original Rescue Rangers, you will hate this. It’s only on Disney Plus if you’re curios. I would say stick to the original. It’s not worth your time.