Looney Tunes: Back In Action

Probably the most insane film I will see this year.

Brendan Fraser plays his own stuntman who teams-up with Bugs, Daffy and Jenna Elfman to save a famous spy actor, who's secretly a real spy, and also played by Timothy Dalton.

It's just the sort of zany live-action / cartoon post-modernism that can fry your brain if you examine it too closely, so it's best to just sit back and enjoy the non-stop artillery of pop-culture references and deadly impossible gags.

Bugs Bunny: [DRESSED IN DRAG WITH LIPSTICK] "I play the female love interest!"
VP of Comedy: "Okay, about the crossdressing thing - then: funny, now: disturbing."

DJ Drake: "Lady, this is Daffy Duck."
VP of Comedy: "Not anymore; we own the name."
Daffy Duck: "Oh yeah? Well, you can't stop ME from calling myself D-[GASP]... D-[GASP]... well, whadayaknow."

[DAFFY DUCK IS CRINGING INSIDE THE SPACESHIP, SUCKING HIS THUMB.]
Daffy Duck: "What am I gonna do? What would Damian Drake do? What would Duck Dodgers do?... Wait a minute, I'm Duck Dodgers!"
[DAFFY 'SPINS' INTO HIS DUCK DODGERS COSTUME.]
"Aha! I'm going to be the hero of this picture!"
[DAFFY STRAPS ONE OF FIVE ROCKETS ON.]
"Duck Dodgers to the rescue!"
[THE ROCKET BLOWS UP. DAFFY STRAPS ON THE SECOND ROCKET.]
"Duck Dodgers to the..."
[THE SECOND ROCKET BLOWS UP. DAFFY STRAPS ON THE THIRD ROCKET.]
"Duck Dodge..."
[THE THIRD ROCKET BLOWS UP. DAFFY TURNS AND LOOKS AT THE FOURTH ROCKET.]
"Duck..."
[THE FOURTH ROCKET BLOWS UP.]
[DAFFY SUDDENLY APPEARS OUTSIDE THE SHIP WITH THE LAST ROCKET STRAPPED ON, WORKING.]
"It's 'You-Know-Who' to the rescue! [TO THE AUDIENCE] It helps if you don't say the name."

It's not just the classic Warner Brothers characters who pepper this movie, but also a host of cameos from live-action genre movies. Shaggy has a go at Matthew Lillard for his live-action portrayal of him. Dr Miles Bennell, from the 1956 version of Invasion Of The Body Snatchers, is still played by Kevin McCarthy, and appears with his skin made-up in black-and-white. They even take a moment to poke fun at the film's own predecessor Space Jam.

I can't skip acknowledging the Daleks, and pointing out that they were the TV versions (Hartnell and Pertwee if I'm not mistaken) as opposed to the metal-clawed movie ones that would have been more in-keeping, but really who cares? Not even me. After all, they were illegal aliens.

This film is packed to bursting with ingenuity and cleverness, uncomfortably let down by two inherent flaws throughout:

1. Its ignorance of WB's huge 1990s TV revival. Tiny Toons, the Animaniacs, Freakazoid... sorry, who? As soon as, in the opening scenes, the famous WB water tower collapsed and spewed only water, I perceived this to have been green-lit by people who didn't love their subject that much.

2. The all-round weak animation. Characters are repeatedly animated outside of the live-action actors' sightlines, they look too CGI-smooth to properly resemble their familiar loud appearance, and they don’t even have the same number of frames per second as the footage they've been added onto.

The results are images that just don't quite gel, which throughout an entire 90-minute movie, somewhat disables the main stars.

Still, this script is so first-class that it overcomes all that, and director Joe Dante's reputation for pulling this sort of inspired lunacy off remains firmly secure.

Brilliant fun.

Available here.