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DVD Looney Tunes - Back in Action (Widescreen Edition)
At the peak of Looney Tunes: Back in Action, Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck lead Elmer Fudd on a wild pursuit through famous paintings hanging in the Louvre, their animated selves absorbing the painting styles of Salvador Dali, Georges Seurat, Toulouse Lautrec, and others. That sequence manages to recapture the anarchic spirit of Warner Bros.' classic cartoons; unfortunately, not much else in this labored movie does. Technically, the merging of live actors and cartoon characters is impressive, as Brendan Fraser and Jenna Elfman team up with Bugs and Daffy to save the world by keeping a magical diamond out of the hands of the evil Acme Corporation, headed by a nerdy, prancing Steve Martin. Just about every Warner Bros. character makes an appearance, as do Timothy Dalton, Heather Locklear, and the ever-dependable comic delight of Joan Cusack (In and Out, School of Rock). --Bret Fetzer
Review(s): DVD Looney Tunes - Back in Action (Widescreen Edition)
Looney Toons needs to retire for good. Do something original
Nobody cares for the looney toons anymore people grew out of it and our young generation of little kids today don't even know much about it.
Joe Dante disgrace the original creator's and master's of the looney toons, they have to be looking down from heaven right now and their spirits are plaining to give him nightmares cause he ruined their characters. These are the ones I'm talking about (Bob Clampett, Frank Tashlin, Ben Hardaway, Tex Avery, Friz Frelong, Bob McKimson, Chuck Jones, and Mel Blanc). Their defentaly rolling over in their graves right now.
As far as this movie all I know is Bugs and Daffy have team up with live action people Brendan Frasier, and Jenna Elfman to save the world from a evil Acme Corporation the head bad guy is a nerd. The bad guys need a magical diamond to fulfilled their deads.
"007" is "LOO" upside down?!
When animated characters and humans meet, the result can be sublime ("Roger Rabbit") or ridiculous ("Rocky and Bullwinkle"). "Looney Tunes: Back In Action" isn't either, but it isn't bad by any means. Having watched it a few times, I can attest that this is a real homage to the Warner 'toon classics when it works. Basically, Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck are dropped into a MAD magazine level James Bond parody, involving a kidnapped spy movie star, a Las Vegas show girl, and a mysterious African diamond that can turn people into monkeys. So far, it doesn't sound too promising, but director Joe Dante and writer Larry Doyle really try to make it into a series of classic and updated Looney Tune gags and dialogue. When it works-
as in the wild Vegas casino and Strip chases with Yosemite Sam on both the floor and in a NASCAR racer; the classic Louvre chase with Bugs, Daffy and Elmer Fudd blending in with DaVinci, Monet and Munch; and Wile E. Coyote setting up in the desert for both Bugs and Road Runner- it's terrific. Voice artist Joe Alaskey plays Bugs' Brooklyn accent a little too heavy, but his updated Daffy yakking- about cell phones, product placement, and the like- has a good, snide quality. As for the human cast, Brendan Fraser, here a hapless stunt man whose dad just happens to be a 007-esque spy star both in character and for real (played broadly, if briefly, by ex-Bond Timothy Dalton), is a little bland, and the normally witty Jenna Elfman is mostly eye candy as the studio exec. But those who play cartoon-style characters- Steve Martin as the conniving, manic "Mr. Chairman" of ACME Corp., who gets to give orders for everyone from Wile E.
("Desert Operative") to Marvin Martian ("Space Operative"), is so unhinged he's a scream- do better in this sort of thing. Joan Cusack is also great as "Mother", the white-coated director of "Area 52" (not "Area 51, that paranoid invention created to throw you off"), that mirage-like lab outside Vegas populated by sci-fi monsters.
My favorite gag here is Bugs singing along with Elvis' record of "Viva Las Vegas" while riding in Jenna's car across the desert. Now, that's an inspired update on a classic Looney Tunes setup. The late Jerry Goldsmith, better-known for his melodramatic sci-fi music, showed he could yuk it up as well, particularly with his updated arrangement of "Powerhouse", that little pile-driver swing tune you used to hear when assembly lines showed up in the original 'toons.
If it sounds like I'm a Warner scholar, you're probably right, but you don't have to know the originals by heart to enjoy "Looney Tunes"- if anything, those who don't know the classic toons will be inspired to check them out. That, I think, is what Dante and Doyle had in mind. Of the extras, the "Behind The Tunes" and "sound-effects" featurettes are OK but the newly-made cartoon "Whizzard of OW" is classic Road Runner right down to the red-clay mesas and ACME...magic tricks? Somebody definitely found their inner Chuck Jones here.
Oh, yeah- part of the fun here is to spot the supporting Looney Tunes characters as they're dropped into the movie. Foghorn Leghorn as a Vegas poker dealer works, as do the Three Bears as tourists in Paris. But Tweety and Sylvester on an elephant? Never mind. "Looney Tunes" may be half live-action and half-animation, but it ain't half bad.
The greatest live-action/animation comedy of all time!
Mysteries never cease. This smart and hysterically funny film tanks spectacularly and the disappointing Who Framed Roger Rabbit is a blockbuster and Scooby Doo gets a sequel. Maybe people do get the films they deserve after all!
Joe Dante has always been hit and miss outside of the Gremlins films, but this is way up there with Gremlins 2 as his masterpiece. Unlike recent shorts, this recaptures the feel and insanity of the great Looney Tunes perfectly and Dante fills the live action world they inhabit when not making shorts with more in-gags than you can shake a stick at - and 90% of them are great. Yet critics despised it apart from the brilliant chase in the Louvre: maybe they were too dumb to pick up on the in-jokes? Even Steve Martin isn't as bad as they made out. And the film has a great score by Jerry Goldsmith too.
Terrific entertainment, one of the funniest all-round comedies I've ever seen!
Related DVD's Looney Tunes - Back in Action (Widescreen Edition)
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