Guilty Pleasures #21 - Looney Tunes Back in Action

Studio intervention is often the undoing what could’ve been great films. It’s more common that you might think in movies, both the Spider-man movies that lead to the respective reboots both had issues with studio intervention.

And we’ve got another example of what might’ve been a successful movie buried under studio interference with Looney Tunes: Back in Action. Originally a sequel to Space Jam (which may or may not still be in the works) but after Michael Jordan said he wouldn’t do another and after a failed attempt to get Jackie Chan (god knows what that movie would’ve looked like) the project underwent numerous delays.

So they tried to offer the directing role to Joe Dante, a guy who had had success with movies like Gremlins (which had some background from an episode of Looney Tunes) and his original idea, which was a period piece centred around Chuck Jones, was rejected as they wanted to continue with a Space Jam theme

Years later (presumably having given up on that idea) they gave him Back in Action. He wanted a movie that was a better representative of what the Looney Tunes were actually like, feeling they were poorly represented in Space Jam (and they were) and as a tribute piece to the late Chuck Jones

But after the reading the script, Warner Bros weren’t happy. Joe Dante, whose popularity had become more cult-following than mass market by this point, remarks the production ‘the longest year and a half of his life’ because of the lack of freedom from the studio and the beginning, middle and end are all different from his initial concepts.

And the movie was a colossal disaster, an $80m budget wasn’t made, and there’s sources claiming that production costs including marketing ballooned to a massive $150m. The movie made $68.5m with reviews giving mostly average scores, with both praise and criticism rather more muted than you'd see for most films. This lead to WB desperate trying to re-envision the franchise with things Loonatics Unleashed (a widely hated superhero version of the Looney Tunes – I personally think that it’s better once they decide to Zadavia an actual personality, around the finale of season 1 but its mediocre overall)

But I’m here to judge the movie in my own opinion, so let’s take a look

We open with an homage to Chuck Jones’ Daffy/Bugs/Elmer Cartoons, including most of the dialogue which is outright stolen from it. You know the rabbit season/duck season joke doesn’t work here because there are SIGNS ALL AROUND THEM THAT SAY "RABBIT SEASON!" In the original cartoon with this gag, there weren’t any, in fact the sign stuff was used for a completely different joke.

So after a montage of Daffy getting shot, we cut to a board meeting where Daffy explains his displeasure of playing second fiddle to Bugs, Bugs then arrives making references to several behind the scenes guys of the original Looney Tunes cartoons.

I would like to point out the original idea for the opening was a rejected pitch of Daffy Duck being a superhero against a crazy clown Elmer Fudd with cameos from the other Looney Tunes. I actually thought it was a cool idea

We’re introduced to Kate Haughton, the Vice President of Comedy who has no sense of humour, go figure... She explains that whilst Bugs Bunny is massively popular, Daffy is less so (gee, Bugs is popular and Daffy isn't... Never seen this one before...) Daffy says that they need to choose between them and the Warner Brothers immediately chose to fire him.

We cut to Brendan Fraser playing stunt man DJ Drake (I know, what a stretch) he fails his audition to some guy and the Crusher (why not?) and we see that his father is a spy actor. DJ is a security guard tasked with polishing a car, when Kate drags Daffy out to get DJ to evict him (hijinks to follow) Bugs helps Daffy escape whilst Kate and DJ are pre-occupied flirting. (Or acting badly, I’m not sure which)

DJ is tasked with going after him and you can imagine this goes about as well as you might expect. Daffy heads to the top of a set where Batman is about to perform a jump and DJ falls after him, landing on an airbag (why is the director complaining about the expense of the airbag? It’s an airbag, you can use it more than once) Daffy heads into the batmobile which works (go figure) and is about to drive away when DJ finally grabs him.

However the Batmobile is apparently able to function without a driver (I know it probably could in the movie, but... This is supposedly a movie prop) and drives straight into a support column for the famous Warner Movie Lot Water Tower, Gee the Warner Brothers and the Warner sister are gonna be p*ssed.

Well, Dot certainly is

Anyway, for this DJ is fired, despite the fact that it isn’t his fault in any way whatsoever. We cut to a café with Porky and Speedy discussing being politically incorrect (erm, how is Porky politically incorrect again? I know that Speedy is supposedly an offensive mexican stereotype, but we've had the mice in that Titanic animated movie, Speedy's nothing compared to that) and hand-drawn Shaggy and Scooby chewing out Matthew Lilard for his performance in the Scooby Doo movie (it’s funny since Matthew Lilard ends up replacing Casey Casem in the roll as Shaggy after Casem’s retirement from the role)

So the real purpose of this scene is a scene between Bugs and Kate where Bugs says that Daffy is essential to his routine, citing his Oscars and his place on the Hollywood Blvd. You know, Bugs Bunny only ever won 1 Oscar, for Knighty Knight Hare, those other Oscars are for Looney Tunes shorts that Bugs didn’t star in at all (Tweetie Pie, For Scent-imental Reasons, Birds Anonymous and Speedy Gonzales, so Speedy and Pepe la Pew should each own one of them whilst Tweety owns two)

We get Bugs Bunny disputing being given a female sidekick by saying he normally plays the love interest in what I think is a deliberate jab again Space Jam’s Lola Bunny. More cameos from Michigan J Frog, Ralf E. Wolf and Sam Sheepdog. Because...

DJ arrives at his home where Granny lives with Tweety and Sylvester engaging in their usual hijinks. Daffy arrives at the house having hidden in his backpack, saying that he’ll get loads of offers after this, however he lays eyes on a magazine, which made it to print and somehow ended up on the desk despite the fact he was fired only a few hours ago and we’ll see in a moment that the other resident of the house is indisposed.

DJ tries to get Daffy to leave but naturally Daffy’s not so easy to throw out, especially when he finds out DJ's father is Damian Drake, the actor who plays a spy in such classics as Codename Operation Conspiracy (wow, that’s another dig I suspect) Daffy suspects he might be a real spy using his acting career as a cover. Wow, that would be unbelievably stupid, I'll explain why later. Soon, DJ gets a call on his remote control. He answers it and DJ’s face appears behind a painting, he’s tells DJ, whilst fighting off random thugs, to go to Las Vegas and ask Dusty Tails for the Blue Monkey, a very special diamond.

Naturally the mention of a big valuable diamond gets Daffy’s attention (never seen that one before). DJ is not so keen on dragging him along, driving off without him in his pathetic little rust bucket that Daffy thinks is a spy car, but Daffy naturally appears in the car anyway. The real spy car appears once the garage doors are closed.

Back at WB studios they try the same routine without Daffy (who thought that could ever be a good idea) which leads to Elmer shooting bugs and the Warner Brothers firing Kate (despite the fact THEY FIRED DAFFY) She claims that her films have made $950bn. Lady, Joss Whedon made more than that in a single movie with the Avengers, then did it again with Age of Ultron, we’re not impressed. She agrees to get Daffy back by Monday else she’ll lose her job. You know, you'd have a pretty good case for unfair dismissal if you just didn't.

We cut to Daffy getting thrown out of DJ's car and just appearing back in it, he and DJ enjoy banter where Brendan Fraser pokes fun at himself for doing his own stunts. Daffy gets a call from Bugs where we partake in one of those pushing split-screen gags. Daffy mentions the blue monkey and it’s picked up by an Acme satellite heard by this guy, Bob I think his name is. He goes into a briefing room where we meet Steve Martin voicing… What, he’s not a cartoon character?

Steve Martin plays the evil chairman of the ACME corporation (and before you ask, no he doesn't get an actual name), that company that seems to always provide dodgy cr*p to Wile E Coyote. Bob whispers some stuff and we get another couple of gags and you know where we’re going. They want the diamond and they need to stop DJ and Daffy. He has DJ kidnapped but he’s still able to kick the cr*p out of his men

After some god awful looking CGI shots of the building we cut back to Kate Haughton at DJ’s house. For some reason she thinks that Daffy might’ve told him where he was going (she's right but...) she breaks into the house (OK, the door was unlocked but that’s just rude) she enters the bathroom (make your own jokes for this one) pulls back the shower curtain (again, make up your own jokes) and sees Bugs who screams.

She then realises that she’s just fired the son of one of her biggest stars. She breaks down claiming she reveres and tried to model her life after Bugs Bunny (what? In what way? Also Bugs Bunny is not an ideal role model) so, Bugs naturally has to help and tells her that Daffy’s off to Las Vegas with DJ. She also says they can travel in style by stealing a car. I think Daffy’s line from earlier is becoming shockingly more accurate.

“I’m allowed to steal, I’m a celebrity” - Daffy Duck

So, we cut to Bugs singing along to a song on the radio until Kate interrupts and throws his instrument out of the window, we then get some James Bond star car extra including bombs, martinis and formal wear (which is a skimpy looking dress for Kate and a tuxedo for Bugs, does the car know who’s driving?)

Daffy and DJ arrive in Las Vegas and find Yosemite Sam’s casino where Dusty Tales is playing (they're really finding plot convenient ways of including all the characters aren't they?). The chairman of the Acme Corporation demands that DJ and Daffy aren’t let out of the casino in one piece, offering Yosemite Sam the chance to earn a chest of gold/avoid a beating if he succeeds. Dusty is welcomed onto stage by Foghorn Leghorn, who works at the Casino for some reason

Dusty and her Sam sidekicks sing a cr*ppy song as DJ decides to head backstage, he takes one of the dwarf Sam-lites and takes his mask, and dances right up to Dusty to ask for her help, subtle. Anyway, Sam enlists his two sidekicks, Nasty Canasta and that guy from the Super-rabbit cartoon, I think. And says they need to get what the guys have come for before blasting them.

So we get some banter and we get a spy trope mockery as Dusty reveals herself to be a part-time assassin as she shows off her leather jacket that exposes some of her cleavage (I do hope this supposed to be mocking spy tropes) she reveals that the diamond has super-natural powers and shows him a playing card, the Queen of Diamonds.

Their banter is interrupted by the arrival of Yosemite Sam and his cronies who shoot Daffy into a fire extinguisher and go after Damian, fortunately Dusty handles the cronies as Damian cleans off Daffy. Damian is next to fight off the cronies with Daffy being as much help as usual, the card falls into a deck being dealt by Foghorn Leghorn. The game is black jack but the cards clearly haven’t been well shuffled since 7 aces appear within 9 dealt cards, the final card is naturally the one they’re looking for and they grab it and leave.

They try and head off in the car but it’s a total wreck. With Yosemite in pursuit they run, Yosemite commandeers a car. Bugs and Kate arrive and almost instantly meet up with DJ and Daffy (what a co-incidence) DJ takes the wheel and they partake in a car chase, with dynamite. They get backed into a corner but as Daffy says mother the sat-nav system takes that as a destination and takes flight, so cue bizarre comedy routine with Yosemite lighting a match in dark room full of dynamite (in Las Vegas, yeah…)

The car begins to drop but fortunately it runs out of gas before it hits the ground so it stops in mid-air before Kate points out the stupidity of that and it drops. So as Kate and DJ flirt, Bugs and Daffy discuss their differences and we cut to the next morning where Kate has gone mad. In what is both a joke on product placement and a massive product placement whore we get a scene where Walmart appears in the middle of the desert and they get free stuff for saying the name so often. (I'm not sure if it's blatantly clever or cleverly blatant)

The Chairman is angry and chucks Sam out of the window, he tries to get Damian to talk but instead it’s time to call in their desert operative. Wile E Coyote, Desertus Operatus Idioticus wow – way to miss the mark on one of Chuck Jones’ most successful characters, you know, they guy you're supposedly paying tribute to. Wile E. Coyote is supposed to be smart, even smart enough to declare himself a genius. OK, that's partly his own ego talking but never is he portrayed to be stupid.

He answers the phone and spies himself DJ and co, he orders a missile launcher off the Acme website and naturally it falls right on top of him. Wile E prepares to fire but for some reason the missile crushes him and blows him up (you know, it would've been better had the gag been cleverer). DJ prepares to leave but he accidentally steps through a portal into a strange place

Inside the room is bunch of aliens, some guards corner DJ but they’re called off by our quirky female characters (because Kate’s personality is… Not really existent) who calls herself Mother. Inside the cages are things, things, Daleks from Doctor Who (Terrance Dicks will likely never license them out again) and of course, Marvin the Martian. Their location is Area 52, with area being a fantasy used to hide the base (go figure)

Look, I know this meme was terrible but... I don't care

After another scene with the chairman we see Marvin being contacted by said Chairman ordering him to obtain the car and destroy the Duck (not entirely sure why). DJ asks about the Blue Monkey and Mother shows him a tape, the Blue Monkey diamond can turn people into monkey and back again, with the Chairman’s plan being to turn the population into monkey slaves to manufacture the goods, and back to people so they can buy it. So what does Batman have to say about this plan?

I quite agree. So Damian’s mission was to destroy the diamond. Mother says that if he’s gonna take over his father’s mission, he’ll need some equipment. First we have the stupidly impossible phone with features like an electromagnet, a high powered laser, a Gameboy (for some reason) and a grappling hook. Want to throw any more features in there, maybe it shines your shoes for you, or brushes your teeth.

He then provides some rocket powered pants (obvious joke is obvious). Marvin escapes and begins breaking out fellow inmates. She says that the card is the window to what lies behind her smile before they’re confronted by the aliens. Mother sounds the alarm and then disappears, the barrier will seal in 30 seconds, in the deleted scenes we see an extended version of this that was likely a version the studio cut from the movie, featuring a big Duck Dodgers chase sequence, one of the problem is in that version the portal closes in 10 minutes and in fact only closes because Marvin forces it to... because nothing could possibly happen in 10 minutes) so with only seconds left the portal closes with the 4 jumping out just in time.

They realise that the Queen in the card is the Mona Lisa in the Louvre, thanks to magical jump-cuts they arrive at the Louvre. They find a window behind the card and discover a map of Africa behind the painting (who hid this diamond anyway?) for some reason they decide to take a picture. Daffy jumps up and down before they’re confronted by Elmer, another acme agent. Bugs says they’ve made 35 pictures together, which if you count the revival shorts and include the one they were working on back at the lot is surprisingly accurate.

Whilst Bugs and Daffy distract Elmer, Bob grabs Kate and heads off. Bugs and Daffy jump through paintings to escape Elmer, taking on the look of each painting as they’re inside it. He takes Kate in a burlap sack to the Eiffel tower (incidentally that’s on the other side of the river from the Louvre) DJ tries to ask for some help but unfortunately he asks a very bad sounding Pepe La Pew who just ignores the report and gives DJ a bad whiff

Bugs and Daffy head into a painting done by pointillism, Elmer maintains the design when he leaves the pictures allowing bugs to blow him away with a fan. DJ tries to use his rocket trousers to fly up the tower but unfortunately the obvious joke happens and the trousers fly off without him (that must’ve hurt his crotch) leaving him in just his underwear. 2 of the 3 the bears arrive (how convenient) to laugh but DJ steals the dad’s trousers (that is many levels of disturbing, also given Papa Bear's size, I'm not sure they'd fit)

Beaky Buzzard (just in case you didn't think they could cram any more characters in) arrives in a helicopter to pick up Bob, who steals the phone from Kate, Kate grabs onto him as he makes his escape and its time for an implausible rescue using the grappling hook feature of the phone (I’m pretty sure that’s the only feature they use) they land in the café after DJ takes flowers and chocolates from nearby stalls and gives them to Kate. Are we supposed to buy these two as a romantic couple? What am I saying, they’ve flirted for most of the movie.

But they’ve lost the phone and hence the map (why did they take the picture again? Was there a big cross where the blue monkey is being kept?) meanwhile we get another scene with Steve Martin followed by the evil Gossamer creating scientist. He says it’s time to unleash the Tazmanian devil.

We cut to Africa (don’t ask where, it’s just Africa) they find an elephant conveniently in the jungle with Tweety and Sylvester and Granny, with only Bugs questioning the coincidence; they head off with the elephant crossing a tree trunk at one point. They arrive at the not at all conspicuous temple of the blue monkey which is defended by a bridge and a lava pit. They find a piece of a puzzle and whilst DJ deflects some darts with his sword, Kate assembles the puzzle which upon completion lowers the bridge and reveals the Blue Monkey

They get the diamond demonstrating the ability to change people to and from monkeys but they’re confronted by Granny, Sylvester and Tweety who reveal themselves to be The Chairman, Bob and Taz in disguise, we then get the inevitable fart joke (I don’t remember many of those in a Looney Tunes cartoon) Bob fires his teleportation ray, transporting the chairman and the 4 heroes to the acme hq, Bob then reveals himself to be a tazmanian she-devil and she and Taz live happily ever after I suppose.

OK they completely changed the ending from the original design. In fact the final battle was to take place here with the blue monkey devolving people rather than turning them into monkeys (don't ask I don't know) Tweety was somehow in the scene (maybe they thought him appearing would be odd under the circumstances) and victory would occur when Damian zaps Tweety turning him into a Pterodactyl (mistakenly thought to be a dinosaur) who essentially eats him. Whilst clever and funny and concept the execution from the deleted scene was sort of odd to me with it being really unclear how far people are devolved from it. Oh and Damian was brought as a hostage but DJ turned him into a monkey so he could escape.

At Acme HQ it’s revealed that Damian is currently tied to a train track with a train approaching, TNT on the track and an anvil for good measure. He says that in order to save his father he needs to hand over the diamond, so DJ hands it over but naturally it’s a double cross. The chairman hands the diamond to Marvin the Martian (who escaped from Area 52... somehow) to attach it to a satellite, he heads to a ship to do so.

Bugs and Daffy set off in pursuit. After some hijinks they land on the satellite. Meanwhile Kate and DJ are suspended next to the train tracks, they escape easily but a robot dog (who reminds me of Chester from Spike and Chester cartoons) is there to stop them. Back on the satellite we get Marvin and Bugs participating in a Star Wars reference. Daffy utilises his Duck Dodgers persona to help. Back at Acme HQ, Damian uses a convenient rope cable to leash the robo-hound and goes off to rescue his father, so Wile E Coyote is left with the dynamite. Marvin incapacitates Bugs and focuses his efforts temporarily on Daffy, Daffy is crushed but he is able to use his beak to overload the machine.

The Chairman for some stupid reason comes out and is turned into a monkey and arrested thanks to Damian’s convenient monkey handcuffs. Bugs and Daffy crash back into the building, scaring off the Chairman for a never ever ever gonna happen sequel. So after some pronoun games we get some bonding and we find out that the entire thing was a movie production. Which really does explain a lot. Although how did Daffy not know?

So we get a scene with DJ punching Brendan Fraser (stop hitting yourself!) Bugs agrees to have Daffy and him as equal partners and Daffy ends up squashed by the end credits. The end.

So, what was good and what was bad about this film?

It’s a very tough struggle what really is a sequence of gags into a feature length story, this one has too much story for a Looney Tunes show. It becomes a bit too convoluted and complicated by the end. Having said that, it’s a very funny movie, most of the jokes are true to the Looney Tunes spirit and the work. Much like with Space Jam there’s a lot of cameos that will please long time fans of the show or possibly irk them with how convenient they are.

The human characters are where things become a bit more problematic. It’s never easy to act when your animated counterparts aren’t even in the room with you. I give it credit to Brendan Fraser and Jenna Elfman who are able to handle themselves, aside from some moments of bad acting and a very odd chemistry between them. Steve Martin I give less credit to. In a story full of cartoon characters he comes across as more cartoony than most of them and it just wasn’t necessary given the characters he was working with. Perhaps it’s a case of miscasting or perhaps it’s just poor direction, either way it didn’t wash well with me

The animation looked fine, it’s nothing new, it’s about as impressive as Who Framed Roger Rabbit, which admittedly was from over 10 years ago. Joe Alaskey provides the voices for Bugs, Daffy and Sylvester (and Mama bear) and to his credit, he does a good job (I actually prefer Joe Alaskey's Bugs to Jeff Bergman), although I stand by my opinion that no-one will ever replace Mel Blanc. Others worth noting Brendan Fraser does both the Tazmanian devils, Jeff Bennett does Foghorn, Sam and Nasty Canasta, June Foray reprises her role as Granny once again (she's the only classic Looney Tunes voice actor to still be playing the roles to this day) and Eric Goldberg (who also was animation director) does Tweety, Speedy and Marvin the Martian all of which were done

As for the question that started this review. I have seen the scenes that were the original beginning, middle and end. Honestly I don’t think they made that big a difference, they were neither better nor worse than the original intent (honestly I think the alternate ending was even more convoluted), although some scenes cut out of the area 42 stuffs leave some payoffs without any build up (the Daleks shooting each other).

To follow up on something I said earlier, I said using an acting career playing a spy as a cover for being an actual spy is incredibly stupid because having your name plastered on posters is hardly covert, not to mention the time needed for a starring could interfere with your spy work, I kinda get what they were going for and it works with the silly nature of the movie.

Rage Rating: -30%

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Images used in this review are from Looney Tunes Back in Action and Justice League Unlimited and belong to their respective owners. All images in this review are subject to fair use