Looney Tunes: Back in Action

Forget "Roger Rabbit", but forget also "Space Jam". It is so sad when three great actors like Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and Steve Martin blatantly "do it for the > money" (or the carrots, or whatever they pay Daffy with). All three of them do a really poor standard performance... The human villain thinks it's enough to act stupid to look like a cartoon, the two toons seem to justify wooden acting with pretending to be human. A recent Hollywood fashion is an attitude like "Hey, let's get something that worked in the past, cut some stupid expenses like a decent screenwriter, and let's be back in the big bucks again! Just put in some expensive-looking effects and the morons won't notice!" - Matrix 2.1 and 2.2 as a case in point. And the effects are marginally under standard, too. Bottom line, I definitely didn't like it; make it 5/10, and just thanks to the only true professional there: Vile E. Coyote, great as usual (and quoting himself, they pay him WAY too little).

The real fun of this movie is to see if you can catch all the gags in it such as the show frog eating flys and the man sneaking away with him as in the cartoon. I'll have to watch it again to catch them all. It was also fun to see them use stuff from other films and shows such as the Daleks saying "exterminate, exterminate" What a hoot. The movie is so so, good, not great IMNHO and they did give plenty of safe eye candy for the men in the audience.

Daffy Duck finally has enough of playing second fiddle to Bugs Bunny, he quits the Hollywood studio and teams up with Bobby Delmont (Brendan Fraser) an ex-stuntman; together they go on a mission to rescue Damian Drake (Timothy Dalton) a spy who has been captured by the evil chairman of the Acne corporation (Steve Martin)

With strong comic performances from Brendan Fraser, Steve Martin and Jenna Elfman, plus everyone's favourite Looney Tunes, this film is a good laugh for the whole family, and the blend between cartoon and real life is the best i have seen.

7/10

I'm a huge Looney Tunes fan, if not a major cartoon fanatic alone, so when I found out this movie was being made, I jumped for the chance to see it. First off, I was thrilled to see that the creators stuck to the "Roger Rabbit" technique, in which the cartoons were all hand-drawn and computers are only used to add color and depth (to give the 3D appearance of the characters). Second, I thought that the cartoons themselves were great. Bugs, Daffy, Porky, Yosemite Sam, Foghorn, Speedy Gonzales, Elmer... they all stuck to the same characteristics that I grew to love watching Bugs Bunny cartoons on Saturday morning. The only real draw-back of this movie was, without a doubt, the live-action actors. Brendan Fraser is good, but he can't live up to his past movies (especially "The Mummy" saga). The same goes to Jenna Elfman, who's talent is severly wasted as she comes across as the most serious character in the whole movie. Timothy Dalton, as usual, is flawless (and if you look closely, you can actually see how closely Fraser and Dalton look alike). Steve Martin, meanwhile, makes one of the worst performances of his career, and acts WAY too over the top, even for an eccentric villain.

The movie is good, but only is you are a truly devoted cartoon-lover (if you are, then you'll get a huge kick out of the opening sequence alone). Overall, come for Bugs, leave for Martin.

Even though I had heard good things about this film, I didn't expect that much....but was very surprised. It's good, very entertaining and worth watching. The humor is excellent with some very funny things in here and very clever in spots. It helps a lot to know your Looney Tunes characters and it helps a great deal to know your film history. References to old films and characters are everywhere. For that reason, I would recommend this film for classic movie fans. They'll be pleasantly surprised.

On the bad side, I found the film too loud, which is no surprise since cartoons tend to be that way. The loudest may have been Daffy Duck, who is a major player in this film. The female lead, Jenna Elman, is too hard-looking and just not likable to me.

The positives outweigh the negatives, however. If you can put up with the loudness and stupid acting (Steve Martin is brutal here in that regard), you'll still get a ton of laughs out of this movie.