‘Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers’ Review: The Fuzzy Adventurers Are Back — But Different — In a Very Meta Disney Reboot
variety.comAmy Nicholson If only Andy Warhol had lived to see “Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers,” the cinematic culmination of the Campbell’s soup can painter’s meta-commentary on the blurring of art and commerce.
This frenetic and funny crossbreeding of live action and cartoon is both a reboot and an anti-reboot, a corporate-funded raspberry at corporate IP, and a giddily dumb smart aleck committed to mocking its joke — and making it, too.Director Akiva Schaffer, a producer and occasional helmer, has already helped to invert the meathead action flick (“MacGruber”), the rock biopic (“Pop Star: Never Stop Never Stopping”), the time-loop comedy (“Palm Springs”) and, of course, the music video as one-third of The Lonely Island, co-founded with his middle school friends Andy Samberg and Jorma Taccone, both of whom voice characters here.
The trio met around the time Disney’s original 1989 “Rescue Rangers” series shifted into syndication and one barely has to squint to see that this feature is a cargo cult of nostalgic obsessions held together by snark, moxie and momentum.
Here, Chip (a bone-dry John Mulaney) and Dale (Samberg) are middle-aged chipmunk actors who have long since spent the royalty checks from their time on the series.
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