Review of Looney Tunes: Back in Action (2003) by Mrmoviebuff — 11 Feb 2017

While 'Who Framed Roger Rabbit' (1988) combined the endless parade of favorite cartoon characters to cross paths with the live action actors, it would be easy to understand that it may have influenced 'Space Jam' (1996), a movie that combined the favorite Looney Tunes characters with a basketball star like Michael Jordan.

Here, we now have 'Looney Tunes: Back in Action' another animated/live-action Looney Tunes crossover that I enjoyed about as equally as 'Space Jam' (1996). However, the one thing I can say is that this movie does get one thing right, and that is the spirit of the Looney Tunes.

The characters act the way they would and should when they're in a story like this one. The movie opens with a classic Looney Tunes sketch that involves Elmer Fudd hunting for rabbits, with Daffy Duck arguing with Bugs Bunny over what season it is.

"Rabbit Season!", "Duck Season!" they shout to each other constantly. But, things stop when Daffy gets tired of the repetitive shooting of himself, he feels that these jokes are made redundant and that the producers of these shows should try some new material, maybe where Daffy doesn't become the target of humiliation anymore.

However, the vice president of comedy, Kate Houghton (Jenna Elfman) decides to remove Daffy from the show after making these requests. We are then introduced to a training stunt-man/cop named D.J. Drake (Brendan Fraser), who is struggling to make it big in the show-business, despite his father, Damian Drake (Timothy Dalton) being a star.

The world seems to be in threat when D.J. later receives a call from his father who tells him to go to Vegas to ask about some mysterious object called "The Blue Monkey Diamond" which, apparently has the power to transform human beings into monkeys, and it grabs the attention of the movie's main villain, the ACME chairman (a charismatic Steve Martin) who wants to use the diamond as a way to hypnotize the population to buy his products.

The plot sounds ridiculous, but at the same time, it keeps within the spirit of the Looney Tunes characters. The movie goes a little over the top towards the end, as it starts out like any other family adventure movie, but like I said, it gets a little overboard as the characters become something more than how they were first shown.

There are some very funny moments added here, and the cast do a good job to stay within the animated spirit. Director Joe Dante also does a capable job of handling so many of these beloved characters, but maybe, if they were to do a movie like this again, make a coherent, and calm plot rather than trying to go too over the top.