Looney Tunes: Back in Action really clicks when the Warner Bros. cartoon characters, and not the pesky humans, take charge.
By STEVE PERSALL
Published November 13, 2003
[Photo: Warner Bros..]
Bugs Bunny and Steve Martin in Looney Tunes: Back in Action. The human characters get in the way of some inspired cartoon gags.
Saturday mornings aren't the same after someone decided Bugs Bunny and friends weren't cool enough for TV anymore. But Space Jam certainly didn't prove the gang could transition to movies.
Now the Warner Bros. characters get a second chance in Hollywood with Looney Tunes: Back in Action, and the results are mostly encouraging. Director Joe Dante, whose 'toon-inspired episode of The Twilight Zone Movie was a highlight of that film, takes charge of the franchise with loads of affection for what made Bugs, Daffy Duck and Elmer Fudd icons in the first place.
Only the human characters get in the way, since this is another knockoff of Who Framed Roger Rabbit.In that regard, Back in Action is a dud since the spy plot featuring Brendan Fraser, Jenna Elfman, Steve Martin and Timothy Dalton keeps interfering with the Looney Tunes characters. But on those occasions when Dante lets his 'toons do all the talking, this movie is a lot of fun.
Fraser plays D.J. Drake, a Warner Bros. security guard dreaming of becoming a stunt man. His father Damien Drake (Dalton) is already a star in James Bond-style adventures. Elfman plays Kate Houghton, the studio's vice president in charge of comedy whose latest decision shoved Daffy Duck out of a job. Bugs wants his pal rehired, refusing to honor his contract if it doesn't happen. The trio goes in search of Daffy to give him the good news.
When Damien Drake is kidnapped - he's a real spy, you see - Bugs, Daffy, D.J. and Kate travel around the world to find the Blue Monkey diamond. The chairman of the evil Acme Corp. (Steve Martin) also wants the gem for his world domination plot. Like the original Looney Tunes productions, plot isn't as important as the parodies, wisecracks and celebrity cameos that pop up along the way.
Some cartoon sequences in Back in Action are pure delights, such as a visit to the Louvre museum in Paris where Bugs and his pals become magically contorted into the artistic styles of Salvador Dali, Georges Seurat and Edvard Munch. It's a brilliant piece and culturally educational to a point like the operas and symphonies skewered in vintage cartoon shorts. Another highlight is a terrific spoof of the shower scene from Psycho, with Bugs subbing for Janet Leigh plus a visual punchline only Hitchcock fans can fully appreciate.
Fraser is bland, Elfman tries to hard to compete with thin air and Martin is so over-the-top silly that it's annoying. Dalton's connection to the Agent 007 franchise is his lone joke and Joan Cusack blessedly underplays her role as leader of Area 52, a tip-top secret government lab. Some human cameos are amusing, especially Matthew Lillard defending his portrayal of Shaggy in Scooby Doo to the source. Others fall flat: Heather Locklear's musical number is a show stopper in the worst sense.
But Dante obviously admires Looney Tunes, the same way Space Jam director Joe Pytka must have been a Michael Jordan fan. That 1996 disappointment drained all the sass out of Bugs and his friends to make Jordan look better. Now it's back in Back in Action, perhaps funny enough to justify another feature film without all those pesky flesh-and-blood characters in the way.
Looney Tunes: Back in Action
Grade: B
Director: Joe Dante
Cast: Brendan Fraser, Jenna Elfman, Steve Martin, Timothy Dalton, Heather Locklear, Joan Cusack, voices of Joe Alaskey, Bob Bergen and Billy West
