Looney Tunes: Back In Action Movie Review:


Melding the world of human beings and cartoon characters on the silver screen has been a horrendous and often disastrous task for filmmakers. The biggest success and still the staple of this genre was the revolutionary 1988 film, “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?” The film showed that humans and toons could interact given a good script and an understanding of the toons themselves.

Before Roger Rabbit, there were some successes like 1964’s “Mary Poppins”, 1971’s “Bedknobs and Broomsticks” and 1977’s “Pete’s Dragon”. After Roger Rabbit, these kinds of movies were giant bombs or quickly forgotten duds like 1992’s “Cool World”, 2000’s “Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle”, and 2001’s “Monkeybone”. Warner Bros. saw limited success with 1996’s “Space Jam” and saw the potential to bring the likes of “Bugs Bunny” and “Daffy Duck” back to the big screen in a giant way.

In “Looney Tunes Back in Action”, we discover that Daffy Duck is being over-shadowed by the star power of his rival Bugs Bunny. The studio decides to make a movie without Daffy and fires him. Daffy is irate when studio executive Kate Houghton (Jenna Elfman) is behind his dismissal. Daffy bumps into studio security officer DJ Drake (Brendan Fraser) who also seems to have been dismissed by the studio.

Upon arriving home, DJ and Daffy discover that DJ’s famous movie-star father (Timothy Dalton) has been kidnapped. It turns out DJ’s father had been moonlighting as a secret agent and had stumbled upon the whereabouts of the mysterious gem, The Blue Monkey. It’s up to Daffy and DJ to secure the gem before DJ’s father is killed by a maniac (Steve Martin). Meanwhile, Kate and Bugs seem to be in hot pursuit of DJ and Daffy with some news from the studio.

“Looney Tunes Back in Action” is clever, funny, delightful and hysterical. The story of how all the characters get together is a little flat and the film is almost like an amusement park ride as we journey to different settings so that other toons can guest star. But if you love Looney Tunes then this film is sure to make you smile. Just sit back and enjoy the ride.

Unlike a lot of films from this genre, this film understands and welcomes what the toons are all about. They don’t give the toons complex emotions but just enough for us to understand why they are in our world. The toons feel more real without damaging the iconic status that they are. I especially loved the film’s portrayal of Daffy Duck. He is by far the star of this movie. I loved how the film used the rivalry between Daffy and Bugs as a launching point to who these characters were in the film.

I also loved the performances of human beings as well, Brendan Fraser, Jenna Elfman and Steve Martin pulled off a lot of their interaction scenes without missing a beat. The interaction wasn’t stale or out of place but gelled very well.

The biggest compliment I would like to bestow would be to director Joe Dante. I have been a big fan of his films for a while now. But taking a difficult movie like this and delivering so much fun is genius.

This film is just pure chaotic fun. This is the best of the genre since Roger Rabbit hands down. Cheers, Joe.

(4 out of 5)

Dean Kish

Warner Bros takes a second stab at putting its brilliant Looney Tunes characters into an animated/live action adventure comedy (I never saw 1996's Space Jam). And while there's something here, this film never remotely close. After years playing second fiddle to Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck finally loses his cool and gets sacked by Warner Bros' Comedy VP Kate (Elfman). In the process of being escorted off the lot by security guard DJ (Fraser), Daffy causes even more havoc, getting DJ fired as well. What Kate doesn't know is that DJ is the son of the studio's top star, Damien Drake (Dalton), who's been kidnapped by the nefarious ACME chairman (Martin). So off DJ and Daffy go to rescue him, find the supernaturally powered Blue Monkey diamond and save the world. They're pursued by Kate and Bugs to Las Vegas, Paris and the jungles of Africa.

The film is set in a world where cartoon characters coexist with flesh and blood humans, and this combination creates the film's best gags, such as when Daffy and Bugs dive into paintings in a Paris museum, or when characters indulge in zany visual hijinks we remember from the vintage cartoons. But the script just isn't smart enough to stay at this level of inventiveness; it falls back on movie in-jokes that are often unfunny, while the amusing spoofs are irrelevant because they're not even Warner Bros films! It's not like Warners doesn't have perhaps the most memorable back catalogs in Hollywood. So why are they satirising things like Psycho (Universal), James Bond (MGM), Star Wars (Fox) and Men in Black (Columbia)? Other references work better (like a conversation between Lillard and his cartoon alter-ego Shaggy), there are lots of clever cameos and it's great to see these great cartoon characters, even if some seem shoehorned into the plot. As usual, Fraser exudes charm and energy in a not-very-interesting role. Elfman is fine but badly cast--she has more energy in one scene from Dharma & Greg than in this sleepy role. And Martin is unspeakably awful, overplaying to extremes that are, frankly, unforgivable. But I blame Dante, who seems to feel that throwing everything at the screen all the time will make a lively, energetic movie. But it lacks coherence and soul; it's just exhausting noise with brief sparks of wit.

Rich Cline

D.J. (Fraser) isn’t having a good day. He has just being fired from his security job at the Warner Bros. Studios by new executive Kate (Elfman) after destroying half the backlot trying to eject Daffy Duck from the premises, only to return home to find out that his film star father Damien Drake (Dalton) has been kidnapped. His abductor is none other than the chairman of the Acme Corporation (Martin), who needs Drake to give him the location of the Blue Monkey Diamond, an artefact so powerful it can actually change men into monkeys. So it is up to D.J. to find the diamond to save his father, the problem is that Daffy insists on helping.

The Looney Tunes burst back onto the big screen with a very kid friendly adventure. The only problem is that the adults won’t be laughing as much as they should have been.

Nearly every generation in western society must have seen a Looney Tunes short. All of us have grown up laughing at the five minute adventures of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Roadrunner, Sylvester, Foghorn Leghorn, Porky Pig and the rest of the gang, so an audience was already there and all new one was waiting to embrace these classic characters. It’s just a shame that the screenwriters didn’t think about the older generation when they wrote the script.

There is a lot of nostalgia here as classic characters like Wile E. Coyote, Marvin the Martian and Yosemite Sam have hilarious, scene stealing cameos but it is the human element of the story that completely ruins the film for the older viewer. Steve Martin’s Mr Chairman is sheer pantomime and totally annoying to anyone over the age of twelve. His performance is completely over the top and far too grandiose and attention seeking that is totally ruins the picture for the older viewer. While some may argue that making him this un-likeable might have being a conscious decision by the writers to make him a hiss-worthy villain, they have only succeeded in making him instantly detestable to everyone but their key demographic, the under 12s. Brendan Fraser, Jenna Elfman and Timothy Dalton’s characters are so two-dimensional they could be cartoon characters themselves. This is a real shame as both Fraser and Elfman are gifted comedic actors but Timothy Dalton desperately needs to sort out his career.

The human characters play second fiddle to our Looney Tune friends however and this is how it should be. Daffy Duck steals the show in his usual manic style and fans of the hapless duck will rejoice when their hero dons his Duck Dodgers outfit. Bugs Bunny is his usual confident self, turning situations to his own advantage with his quick wit and of course dressing up as a girl bunny. Look out for Looney Tune cameos from all your favourites including Roadrunner, Porky Pig, Foghorn Leghorn and Speedy Gonzalez.

The main problem of the movie is that it doesn’t strike a happy balance between adult and child fun to make a great family movie. The older generation needs to enjoy the movie just as much as the kids for everyone to have a good time but Looney Tunes: Back in Action has far too many cringe worthy moments to appeal wholeheartedly to adults. This is a real shame especially when the director is Joe Dante who has succeeded in doing this so many times before with films like Gremlins, Explorers and Inner Space.

Looney Tunes: Back in Action is a lot of fun for anyone under the age of twelve. Adults will enjoy seeing some of their childhood favourites on the big screen again but the annoying human characters and the lacklustre story won’t make this the most hysterical ninety minutes of your life. It you want to introduce a new generation to these classic characters let them watch the original five-minute gems.

Star Rating = * * * (for Kids) * * (for adults)

Jamie Kelwick

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