Looney Tunes: Back in Action
directed by Joe Dante
written by Larry Doyle

            Joe Dante is the one who is back in action, delivering a fun-filled movie experience just in time to relax our brains after the humorlessness of The Matrix Revolutions.  We need films like Looney Tunes: Back in Action at least once a season as a contrast to the usual stuffiness circulating the multiplexes.  So far this year Shanghai Knights and Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle have supplied self-aware, lightly satirical farces and this is the only the latest and not the last.
            Dante is the perfect director to revive the Warner staple of cartoon characters.  He has paid many an homage to Chuck Jones, particularly in his segment of Twilight Zone: The Movie, and has even featured the animator in cameos in Gremlins and Innerspace.  He knows his Looney Tunes and so does writer Larry Doyle who seems to be updating the 1940 short You Ought To Be In Pictures which featured Daffy Duck and original Warner ‘toon favorite Porky Pig in a short self-parody, combining animated characters with live-action set on the studio lot. 
            Since then, Bugs Bunny became the big star and Porky is now reduced to his trademark closing line and a short but sweet moment in the studio commissary in discussion with Speedy Gonzalez regarding their place in a world of political correctness.  In Pictures, the pig quits his job at the studio and in Back in Action it is Daffy who gets fired by VP of Comedy Kate Houghton (Jenna Elfman).  She then also cans security guard DJ (Brendan Fraser) for damaging half the lot in his attempt to throw out the wacky duck, not realizing he is the son of her company’s hottest actor, and secret super spy, Damian Drake (Timothy Dalton).  After it is discovered that Daffy is a commodity, Houghton is sent, with the help of Bugs, to get him back. 
          There is also a mission to save DJ’s father and find a diamond with supernatural powers before it falls into the evil capitalist hands of Mr. Chairman (Steve Martin), a sniveling prissy who couldn’t be a more cartoon lark if he was hand-drawn.  Another live actor who steals the show is Joan Cusack as Mother, head of the top-secret government facility Area 52 which is also brilliant for Dante’s tribute to matinee horror films of the 50s.  Those who can name all the films from which the alien cameos originate can pat themselves on the back.  Alas, there is no Gremlin among them. 
           Looney Tunes: Back in Action is not much of a children’s picture, featuring more jokes and nods that adults who grew up on the characters will appreciate including one early on which pokes fun at movies catered too much to children.  Very few jokes are as obvious as those found in other family films these days, in fact there are often things to watch in the background which is extremely appreciated since there is none of that subtlety to be found in Scary Movie 3. 
           Sure the animation is sloppy at times and nothing in the movie really compares to Dante’s previous work from when he was a protégé of Corman and Spielberg instead of the aspirant of Columbus (who wrote Gremlins).  I am looking forward more to his next film, though, seeing that it is still possible to make smart comedies for all audiences without falling too far into a pit of immature gags.  To think, it is a fine world we live in when a Looney Tunes film has less unnecessary slapstick than your typical Hollywood comedy.

"Couldn't they have made me look more human than you?"