Les Looney Tunes passent à l'action

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.

I bow to no one in my love and admiration for those classic Warner Brothers cartoons of the 1940's and 1950's. Like so many of my generation, I was virtually raised on these works from infancy on up. Yet, for those of us who are die-hard aficionados, 'Looney Tunes: Back in Action' is a decidedly depressing experience, proving, once again, that when it comes to revisiting one's childhood, a person truly can't go home again.

This is not, of course, a re-visitation in its purest form, since 'Back in Action,' like 1996's 'Space Jam,' is actually a modernized hybrid combining live action with animation. And that, perhaps, is the single greatest problem with this film. Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Elmer Fudd, the Road Runner and the rest of the gang clearly feel more at home in their own two-dimensional world in which the laws of nature have no jurisdiction. Yank them out of that context and stick them into the 'real world' with a bunch of overacting humans and their unique charm begins to drain away and dissipate. Unfortunately, both the cartoon characters and the humans with whom they are interacting are stuck with a dreary, largely unfunny script that substitutes pandemonium and movement for cleverness and wit (qualities the original cartoons had in abundance). The spy tale writer Larry Doyle has come up with is stultifying in its stupidity and reminds us of just why the Warner Brother originals, which were masterpieces of minimalist storytelling, ran for ten or fifteen minutes and no longer. Expanding the story to almost ten times that length stretches the already flimsy material far past the breaking point.

There are a few moments of inspired fun, such as when Bugs and Daffy, followed by an irate Elmer Fudd, jump in and out of art masterpieces in the Louvre, wreaking havoc as they go, or when our intrepid band of heroes encounters a secret Area 51-type government project in the desert inhabited by a coterie of creatures from 1950's 'B' movie classics. In fact, the movie has quite a bit of fun with 'in' movie references that adults are far more likely to get than the children who clearly make up the bulk of this movie's audience. But those moments of inspiration are few and far between, and most of the time we are stuck in a fairly dismal comedy overall. The blending of live action and animation, under the guidance of director Joe Dante, is pretty much state-of-the-art, though these particular cartoon characters have more charm when they are two, rather than three, dimensional in form.

Brendan Fraser, as a stunt man who goes in search of his kidnapped father with Bugs and Daffy along for the ride, makes an appealing hero, although the usually likable Jenna Elfman succeeds mainly in being annoying. Timothy Dalton has a nothing part as Fraser's dad, a legendary movie actor who turns out to be a spy off screen as well as on. Heather Locklear, Joan Cusack, Roger Corman, and Kevin McCarthy also make brief appearances, but the single worst job of acting is turned in by an overwrought and over-wound Steve Martin, who as the diabolical head of the Acme Corporation, delivers a ham handed performance of monumental badness.

Lovers of The WB cartoons had best stick with the originals.

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).

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.

I really like Jenna Elfman (Kate) as a comedienne. She generally does pretty well. She started off great in Looney Tunes searching for Daffy Duck to get him back to the studio, because her job depended on it. But then the plot morphs into Brendan Fraser (Drake) looking for his father and Elfman becomes simply a spectator in the second half of the movie. She becomes a prop on the set, rather than a character having something to do with the action.

After her trip to Las Vegas in the film, Kate serves pretty much as a prop rather than as a character. She does throw a monkey wrench and puts a piece into a puzzle. But after the trip to Las Vegas, Ms. Elfman is mostly just a prop on the set. When the camera goes to her, she is simply standing there watching at Brendan Fraser (Drake) do his part. Fraser does pretty well. He does act through out, but in the second half of the film Elfman is simply a prop.

I went to see this film as a fan of Ms. Elfman's. I heard Ms. Elfman on TV state that she wanted to do more films with Fraser. That will probably be a good thing. I know she can act as I have seen her in other films doing a great job. I think Elfman & Fraser will make a good pair, but Elfman has got to do more acting and less spectating. The definition of "act" is "do", not "spectate" or "watch".

I give the first half a 7 and the second half a 3 for an average of 5. After the first half I was just hoping it would end.