Looney Tunes: Back in Action (2003)

Director:

Joe Dante

Writer (WGA):

Larry Doyle (written by)

Release Date:

14 November 2003 (USA)

Genre:

Animation | Adventure | Comedy | Family

Tagline:

Real life has never been so animated

Plot:

The Looney Tunes search for a man's missing father and the mythical Blue Monkey diamond.

Plot Keywords:

Diamond | Duck | Monkey | Daffy Duck | Spy

Awards:

8 nominations

Cast

Brendan Fraser	...	DJ Drake / Himself / Voice of Tasmanian Devil and She-Devil
Jenna Elfman	...	Kate
Steve Martin	...	Mr. Chairman
Timothy Dalton	...	Damien Drake
Heather Locklear	...	Dusty Tails
Joan Cusack	...	Mother
Bill Goldberg	...	Mr. Smith
Don Stanton	...	Mr. Warner
Dan Stanton	...	Mr. Warner's Brother
Dick Miller	...	Security Guard
Roger Corman	...	Hollywood Director
Kevin McCarthy	...	Dr. Bennell
Jeff Gordon	...	Himself
Matthew Lillard	...	Himself
Mary Woronov	...	Acme VP, Bad Ideas

Also Known As:

Looney Tunes Back in Action: The Movie (USA) (DVD box title)
Looney Tunes: The Movie (USA) (working title)
Spy Jam (USA) (working title)
The Untitled Looney Tunes Project (USA) (working title)

MPAA:

Rated PG for some mild language and innuendo.

Runtime:

USA:91 min

Country:

Germany | USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

DTS | Dolby Digital | SDDS

Certification:

Canada:G (all jurisdictions) | Malaysia:U | Iceland:L | Netherlands:AL | South Korea:All | Portugal:M/6 | Argentina:Atp | Australia:G | Brazil:Livre | Chile:TE | Finland:K-7 | Germany:6 (bw) | Norway:7 | Philippines:G | Singapore:PG | Spain:T | Sweden:7 | Switzerland:6 (canton of the Grisons) | UK:PG | USA:PG (certificate #40190)

Filming Locations:

California, USA

Company:

Warner Bros. Pictures

Trivia:

The sputtering car engine sound effect that Mel Blanc voiced in several Warner Brothers cartoons is heard in the background of DJ's AMC Gremlin.

Goofs:

Errors in geography: While chasing through The Louvre Bugs, Daffy and Elmer jump into the painting "A Sunday on La Grande Jatte" which is on exhibit at The Art Institute of Chicago.

Quotes:

Marvin the Martian: [brandishing a ray gun] Halt, and be fricasseed.

Movie Connections:

Featured in "Troldspejlet: (#31.14)" (2004)

Soundtrack:

Play That Funky Music (White Boy)

Quite frankly, the BEST MOVIE EVER MADE!!!

Well, it took over 4 years but I finally have a new best movie. And not only that but it's the funniest movie ever also. It's quite possible you'll die of oxygen deficiency, you'll be laughing so hard.

Taking place in what is essentially the same universe as Who Framed Roger Rabbit, the movie begins with both Daffy Duck and DJ Drake (Brendan Fraser, who also plays himself as well as Taz) getting kicked off the Warner Brothers lot at the same time. Daffy follows Fraser home only for both of them to make the astonishing discovery that Brendan's movie star dad Damian Drake (Timothy Dalton, who doesn't appear to have aged a day since License to Kill) is a REAL secret agent as well as playing one in the movies. He's been kidnapped by the Chairman of the evil Acme corporation in an attempt to find a mysterious diamond called the Blue Monkey and Brendan and Daffy team up to rescue him.

But the Warner Brothers soon realize that without Daffy the Bugs Bunny cartoons are not worth anything. So Bugs and the Head of Animated Comedy (Jenna Elfman) go looking for him, inadvertently getting dragged into the Blue Monkey plot.

It's not only a wild collection of increasingly insane set-pieces. Looney Tunes Back In Action is quite possibly the most intelligent and brilliantly crafted film of 2003.It's devastating that cheap nonsense such as Scary Movie 3 makes over $100 million while Looney Tunes barely scrapes $20 million. I blame the marketing.

The trailer for this film was absolutely awful. And even I thought it looked really bad. Only my dedication to the Looney Tunes made me see it out of obligation. Thank God I didn't judge it by the trailer. I'm assuming most of the potential audience did. Plus it did have to go up against stiff holiday competition such as Return of the King and Elf (!). Both of those movies had stronger marketing campaigns which is the only explanation I can offer for Elf doing so well.

A few critics blasted Looney Tunes for being no more than an exersize in boosting sales for the Warner Brothers catalogue of characters. This is in no way true. While it's true that merchandise follows this movie (as does every family film) I simply do not see how it's pure exploitation. Space Jam was pure exploitation and an unashamed merchandise excuse. Back in Action fixes everything that went wrong with Space Jam. So much so that Joe Dante nicknamed this the 'Anti-Space Jam movie'. Back in Action is good, old-fashioned Looney Tunes mayhem.

I can't think of a more perfect director for this movie. Joe Dante is the most underappreciated director in recent history. It's obvious from his previous movies that he just loves the Looney Tunes and Back In Action surpasses even Gremlins 2 in terms out wall to wall madness (and correct me if I am wrong, but didn't the Looney Tunes run riot in that movie too). This is his most perfect movie to date and I am sure it will be appreciated by a wider audience once it hits DVD.

The best thing about this movie? The fact that Daffy Duck gets the most amount of screen time. And his outrageous, anarchic antics never fail to amuse. At one point Daffy and Bugs are chased by Elmer Fudd through a bunch of paintings in the Louvre art museum. It's a crazy sequence in which you simply cannot deny the movie's genius.

The merging of live action and animation is seamless. It looks like Brendan Fraser and Daffy really are acting together (and for all we know, they are). Their chemistry is perfect and when Bugs joins the team there's so much going on that just one viewing isn't enough.

There's hundreds of in-jokes (as you would expect from a Joe Dante movie) and none of them are of the cheap, post-modern kind. Looney Tunes Back In Action has more class and more genius than any other comedy in the past few years. Even Steve Martin's performance as the man-child chairman of the Acme Corporation is a return to his edgier roles in movies like The Jerk and is far better than the 'family man' trash he's been doing for the past 10 years. He's practically an animation himself in this wonderful movie that's bursting at the seams with madness.