Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers is the sound of Disney laughing at its own meta humor

Disney's new feature-length, hybrid live-action / animated Chip is the perfect example of everything that's wonderful and terrible about Hollywood. In its frantic attempt at lighting up the warm, fuzzy nostalgia centers of your brain, Chip Dale: Rescue Rangers forgets that callbacks to the good old days really aren't enough to make these sorts of big-screen remakes work. The movie is odd because it feels like Disney is trying to poke fun at itself in ways that don't work.

The Rescue Rangers cartoon from the 1980's was one of the first TV jobs for Chip and Dale, and the live-action movie tells the story of how they got there. As the only two cartoon chipmunks in their school full of larger cartoon animals and human children, Chip and Dale become fast friends and eventually become a relatively successful pair of performers. After Rescue Rangers was canceled, the paths split, and while Dale chooses to stay in Hollywood, Chip decides to become an insurance salesman.

Image: Disney Enterprises

When news breaks that one of their fellow Rescue Rangers castmates has gone missing, the chipmunks are back together. Disney has gone meta before with films such as Ralph Breaks the Internet, which jokingly acknowledged the studio's existence as a cultural and economic powerhouse. The script from Dan and Doug Mand feels very much like a snapshot of this current moment where entertainment conglomerates are encouraging audiences to look at their entire intellectual property catalogs as connected universes and movies.

The idea of classic Disney characters being washed up has-beens who dodge bill collectors has a certain charm to it. The jokes in Dale: Rescue Rangers are self-deprecating and come from Disney characters. By making fun of itself, Dale inadvertently ends up illustrating how powerful Disney is and how easily that power can lead to overbloated nostalgia grabs that play like ominous signs of metaverses to come.

Dale is a mixed bag in multiple senses. Unlike Dale, who chooses to get computer-generated imagery out of a desire to stay marketable, Chip and most of the movie's animated characters remain 2D and cell-shaded. When the characters are being presented like an ever-present sight gag about the dynamics of Chip and Dale's world, their aesthetic styles sometimes clash to the point.

Dale: Rescue Rangers feels like a story that isn't entirely sure what it wants to be, like many other reboots that try to appeal to multiple generations of fans. The movie is meant to be a jumping-on point for new fans, but it also tries to give ample time to the other original Rescue Rangers: Gadget. It would all be fine if it wasn't for the way that Dale's long list of jabs at cartoons from beyond Disney's walled garden feels like unnecessary adornments.

Rescue Rangers will be on Disney Plus on May 20th.