Review: Looney Tunes: Back in Action (2003)

Wake me up, Wake me up inside (I can't wake up), wake me up inside, save me from the dark--

What? That's exactly what was running through my mind when I watched this movie.

Looney Tunes: Back in Action is the 2003 film that pretty much singlehandedly completely destroyed the small, shivering injured puppy that was Warner Bros. Animation Studios, while also managing to very nearly sink the Looney Tunes brand itself (a reboot of the Looney Tunes on Cartoon Network in the early 2010s was met with mixed reviews, but has since gained a cult following, including this reviewer himself, but that has nothing to do with this...atrocity.)

"Directed", a term I use loosely, by Joe Dante, creator of such bastions of cinematic excellence such as Piranha, The Howling, Gremlins, Innerspace, The 'Burbs, Matinee and Small Soldiers; Back in Action just ends up being a completely confusing and frustrating mishmash of half baked ideas, stale jokes, and bizarre pop culture references. Obviously trying to go for a "zany" atmosphere, Dante ends up falling flat on his face and creating a product that looks like a very fancy YouTube Poop or something, with the animated Looney Tunes characters integrated into the live action environment with all the realism of a kindergarten sticker slapped over a picture of Hollywood Boulevard. Jumping and leaping and skittering around, the animation doesn't blend in at all, and looks obviously like a piece of really weak post-production VFX work. Bonus points go to the other CGI effects, all of which look like cheap and artificial. One could argue the obvious "fakeness" of it all was intentional, but when one looks back at Who Framed Roger Rabbit or even Space Jam, Back in Action just ends up looking even worse. The worse part is that this was relased in 2003, the same year that brought us The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. And by Warner Brothers no less, not some obscure indie studio with no budget.

There is no screenplay. What is called a "screenplay" is instead a paper thin excuse plot padded out with dozens of stale, horribly corny and unfunny jokes that are meant to be funny, but just leave me dead inside.

The acting from the humans is pretty bad overall. At least it seems that Brendan Fraiser, Timothy Dalton and Steve Martin all look like their having the time of their lives running around the fake looking sets and acting like weird parody versions of themselves, but Jenna Elfman is just abominable, and Fraiser and her share absolutely no chemistry.

Meanwhile, in the animation department, the Looney Tunes themselves come across as oddly flanderized. Bugs Bunny, usually the perfect example of a likable guy, is instead obnoxious and self righteous, and his constant blatant antagonism of Daffy with little to no provocation makes me want to actively hurt Bugs. It's interesting to note that Chuck Jones, who possibly more then any one else helped define the characters of Bugs and Daffy as we know them, was always quick to point out that the reason we root for Bugs Bunny is because he is never the one to start a fight or offend someone. It's always whoever the cartoon pits against Bugs. For example, in the cartoons, Elmer Fudd always shoots at Bugs first, and is trying to actively kill him, and then Bugs fights back and gives as good as he gets. Here, however, Bugs often pulls the rug out from underneath Daffy Duck for no other reason then trolling for the sake of trolling, which just makes him look like a jerk.

On the Daffy Duck front, the film can't decide if this Daffy is the insecure, egomaniac that Chuck Jones made, or the off-the-wall maniac that Bob Clampet made. Instead, Movie!Daffy bounces back and forth between the two types, while gaining such a level in patheticness that it stops being funny, and just starts being sad. Like, wow, can't Daffy ever catch any sort of a break? Is it too much to ask that he get a good thing in life? Why must he suffer so? Who did he hurt? When Chuck Jones subjected Daffy to all manner of torture and pain, it came as the result of Daffy's one mammoth ego. Here, Daffy's got an ego, but it just feels more pathetic and half-assed then the wild maniac that Chuck Jones made us love so much.

Also, and this is really bugging me, why make ACME evil? Of all the franchises to try and pull the "Materialism is Evil" card on, the Looney Tunes is the absolute last. The original Looney Tunes cartoons are ones that embrace materialism and capitalism, and has made its money on tons of merchandising and franchising. To see the movie paint businessmen as inept clowns who want to turn the world's population into monkeys in order to build their products and then turn said people back into humans to buy said products is just so stupid, it flies past Hilariously Stupid and right into Moronically Stupid.

So yeah, this movie killed me inside. It took the passionate love I have for the Looney Tunes, grabbed it by the neck, carried it behind the creepy woodshed out back, and beat it to death with a rusty crowbar, before setting it on fire and dumping it in the river.

Half a star.

Comments

[Rainbow87dash]

I've seen that movie a few times and I seriously cannot remember anything that happened in it. Just some cheap jokes come to mind, but nothing story related.

I give it half a sh** out of a Five Star meal.

[iowaforever]

Looney Tunes: Back in Action is the 2003 film that pretty much singlehandedly completely destroyed the small, shivering injured puppy that was Warner Bros. Animation Studios,

Until something awesome happened...
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[Jabberwocky1996]

Glad I missed that bullet.