(DISCLAIMER: these are only my own personal thoughts and views on it, do not treat it as Gospel, however right it might be)
The movie itself was mediocre at best.
It is filled with shallow cameos, references and memes that are shoved down the viewer's throat to blind the viewer from the story itself, but once you can get past all the bling, or once those references become obsolete and dead in a few years, i'm convinced a lot of people will see it for what it is:
A 90 minutes ad for Disney.
Partly because it literally is a showcase of the company's IP properties (with a few exceptions sprinkled here and there as a disguise), leveraging their fame while also publicizing the more obscure ones in hope to revitalize their franchise and keep getting money from them.
Partly because it demonizes all the people that, for one reason or another, watch content for free, literally equating bootlegging and pirating movies, to human trafficking.
Then there's the bad guy of the movie: Peter Pan.
His story is an almost perfect parallel to the story of Bobby Driscoll, child actor who played Peter Pan, only to be abandoned and tossed out as soon as he reached puberty and who died young and alone in a barn.
"I was carried on a silver platter—and then dumped into the garbage." -Bobby Driscoll
Now in the best case scenario this has simply been done in a REALLY bad taste, or in the worst case scenario it's a veiled threat to those who work at Disney, basically saying: "You give us bad publicity, we make you the bad guy of our next movie".
Now onto the more sore topic that makes this movie fall from mediocre, to outright bad: the pairing of Gadget and Zipper.
If this was some fanwork i would have nothing to say, it's someone's preference and taste and i'm in no position to critique it.
But i cannot shake the feeling that in this case it has been done maliciously by the people in charge, basically saying: "We know much of the fandom loves Gadget and many like to pair her with either Chip or Dale, so let me show you exactly how much respect i have for you by runing this little fantasy of yours"
How can i be sure of this?
This crackship was completely unnecessary to the movie, the entire story could've gone on without even mentioning that the two were together, which means that they were added on purpose only for the sake of the pairing.
Also notice how the modern day Gadget is completely absent from the trailers, yet everyone knows that she was a big part of the original show and showing her off would have added a lot of publicity to the movie, the marketing department should've screamed like hell to add her to them,
But it was not done, and you know why? Because they knew that they were doing something that the fandom would have hated, so they kept it close to their chest as to not drive away viewers.
Another possibility is that this pairing was made as a PR stunt for woke propaganda.
(DISCLAIMER: this is not a critique on the beliefs of people who consider themselves as such, you call yourself woke that's fine, but if you take something dear to me and twist and mangle it to turn it into an instrument of propaganda, then we're going to have a problem. And remember, right now you're fashionable, but how long do you think it'll be before you're served your own medicine?)
To clarify, i feel it went something along the line of "Hey we know that these ships are popular, but the characters are soo similar, so how about for sake of 'diversity and inclusion' we force Gadget together with Zipper as a metaphor of rejection of less woke shipping"
To show that this kind of thinking is actually present in the movie let's consider another forgettable character: Ellie
Nothing to say on the actual actress, she did her job and did so at her best, but the character itself is just another diversity pinup for woke pubblicity.
It's evidenced by the fact that as a character, Ellie is also completely redundant to the story, and the "twist" of her not being in league with the villain but be betrayed by her boss (whom by voice and mannerism is practically any other straight white male stereotype), is pretty telling.
And before anyone says that's impossible for this to have happened, do i need to remind you of another beloved franchise that suffered the same fate?
In the end it could have very well been a combination of both maliciousness and propaganda, a combination of: "Screw you fandom, i do what i want", and "Look at my glowing wokeism, please praise this movie so we can get money from it and its various franchises".
As a final thought i want to address the fact that many say that this is a successor to Who Framed Roger Rabbit.
It's not.
It's definitely NOT.
WFRR is masterful classic, an original story with original characters that uses various famous cartoons only in a very limited manner and only as an added value to the story itself.
CDRR is a reheated slop of tropes that jumps on the shoulders of a beloved fanchise for notoriety and uses the various memes as an extra boost for publicity. If Disney had made the same exact story, but without the jumpstart that the original CDRR show provided, it would have been a resounding flop.
Once again these are my own views, feel free to comment and critique but only in a respectful and construcive manner (meaning motivating your views with rational arguments, not saying "Nah, i liked/disliked it and you're stupid for writing such a wall of thext for it) both towards me and the other commenters. Anyone who starts harassing and personally insult others will be blocked without forewarning.
EDIT: i'm not sure the producers ever actually watched the original serie, if you notice in the flashback when they are 'filming' the RR episodes, the scenes are completely off of what would be an original show episode. Dale getting hit in the head to have cartoon birds distract Fat Cat? Gadget making awful closing jokes? This is not the Rescue Rangers, this is straight out of Looney Tunes
