Entertainment
 

Looney Tunes: Back in Action

From Looney City Citizens

Looney Tunes: Back in Action
Directed by Joe Dante (live-action)
Eric Goldberg (animation)
Produced by Allison Abbate
Christopher DeFaria
Bernie Goldmann
Joel Simon
Paula Weinstein
Written by Larry Doyle
Starring Brendan Fraser
Jenna Elfman
Steve Martin
Timothy Dalton
Heather Locklear
Joan Cusack
Music by Jerry Goldsmith
Cinematography Dean Cundey
Editing by Rick Finney
Marshall Harvey
Jason Tucker (animation)
Distributed by Warner Bros.
Release date(s) November 14, 2003
Running time 90 minutes
Language English
Budget $80,000,000
Preceded by Space Jam (1996)
IMDb profile

Looney Tunes: Back in Action is a 2003 Warner Bros. film that combines animation to tell the story of a hapless stuntman, DJ Drake (played by Brendan Fraser), who stumbles his way into a plot to possess a mysterious blue diamond in the course of rescuing his famous actor father (played by Timothy Dalton). In his globe-trotting adventure, he is aided (and confounded) by his animated Hollywood friends, Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck, as well as the studio executive who fired him (played by Jenna Elfman). Written by Larry Doyle and directed by Joe Dante, this film is essentially a feature-length Looney Tunes cartoon, with all the wackiness and surrealism typical of the genre.

Contents

[edit] Cartoon cast

[edit] People cast

  • Brendan Fraser did such a good job doing an impersonation of Taz that he was allowed to do the voice.
  • During filming, Brendan Fraser was completely terrified at having to hit Bill Goldberg; Goldberg constantly told him to go ahead and do it, telling him, "It's what I do for a living."
  • Joan Cusack's character is called "Mother", a reference to the head of the spy organization on the TV series The Avengers.
  • Jenna Elfman's character, Kate Houghton, was named after Katharine Hepburn. Houghton was Hepburn's middle name.

[edit] Actors

[edit] Live actors

[edit] Voice actors

[edit] Production

Notably, the film was Jerry Goldsmith's last as composer. Due to Goldsmith's failing health, the last reel of the film was actually scored by John Debney, though Goldsmith was the only credited composer in marketing materials. John Debney got a small credit at the end as "Additional music by".

  • This film started out as a follow-up to Space Jam (1996). It was going to be called Spy Jam, and was going to star Jackie Chan.
  • The character animation in this film was traditionally hand-drawn. Computer technology was used to color the animation drawings in, add tone mattes and shadows to the characters, and composite them over the live-action backgrounds. 3D Computer animation is used on objects such as the spaceships, Wile E. Coyote's missile, the robot guard dog at the end, and Bugs' carrots in the cafeteria.

[edit] Reception

Interestingly since the release of the film, Warner Bros. has attempted to move the spotlight more onto Daffy Duck rather than Bugs Bunny, as shown with the recent releases of the Duck Dodgers animated series (which doesn't feature Bugs Bunny at all; though he is briefly mentioned in one episode), and Bah, Humduck! A Looney Tunes Christmas, which casts Bugs in a very minor role.

[edit] Cultural references

One of the most entertaining features for adults is the plethora of cultural references in Back in Action. A considerable number of classic movies are referenced in quick throwaway scenes, many famous works of art are shown out of their normal context, and many other primarily American cultural jokes appear in the course of DJ Drake and his cartoon associates' adventures.



[edit] Other cultural references

  • In the "Batman" stunt scene, Roger Corman, prolific B-movie director, essentially appears as himself.
  • The secret government facility, "Area 52", pokes fun at the mysterious "Area 51" facility on the Nellis Air Force Range, unacknowledged by the U. S. government, where the military is rumored to hold evidence of extraterrestrials.
  • The alien tickling scene recalls Ray Santilli's infamous "Alien Autopsy" videotape, still a popular subject of ufologists despite its lack of credibility.
  • Jeff Gordon appears as an unnamed race car owner, driving his No. 24 DuPont Chevrolet Monte Carlo. A DuPont Chevrolet was painted with a Looney Tunes paint scheme in promotion of the movie for Gordon to drive in the 2002 Chevrolet Monte Carlo 400; however, in final practice, Gordon crashed the Looney Tunes car, and the backup car only had the regular paint scheme. Special movie decals added to the regular DuPont "flame" design in 2003 for a Gordon car to promote the movie.
  • The scene with a Wal-Mart store in the middle of the desert mocks not only Wal-Mart's ubiquity, but also general commercial product placement in films. The heroes hold a conversation peppered with Wal-Mart slogans and product names.
  • The ACME laptop that Wile E. Coyote uses to order his missile system has a browser that looks suspiciously like Microsoft's Internet Explorer (a rival of Time Warner's Netscape). The website he orders it from blares an offer for free gift-wrapping that looks very much like Amazon.com's system.
  • Among the secret Area 52 VHS videotapes locked up inside Robby the Robot are "THE BLUE MONKEY", "MOON LANDING DRESS REHEARSAL" (alluding to the rumored faking of the Apollo moon landings), "HOW SAUSAGE IS MADE" (a humorous riff on the common expectation that people might not want to eat this popular food if they observed its preparation), and "CONGRESSMEN GONE WILD VOL. 6" (the "WILD VOL." is mainly a guess as the title is partly obscured, in probable reference to the softcore erotic Girls Gone Wild series).
  • In the opening shots of Paris, two nuns can be seen walking alongside several pairs of girls in blue dresses. This is a direct reference to the Madeline series of books by Ludwig Bemelmans.

[edit] See also

[edit] External links


The Looney Tunes films
Featurette
Adventures of the Road-Runner
Behind-the-scenes documentaries
Bugs Bunny: Superstar | Chuck Amuck: The Movie
Greatest Hits retrospectives
Centering on Bugs Bunny
The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Movie | The Looney Looney Looney Bugs Bunny Movie | Bugs Bunny's 3rd Movie: 1001 Rabbit Tales
Centering on Daffy Duck
Daffy Duck's Fantastic Island | Daffy Duck's Quackbusters
Original cinematic material
Space Jam | Looney Tunes: Back in Action
Direct-to-video releases
Tweety's High Flying Adventure
Cameos
Two Guys from Texas | My Dream Is Yours | It's a Great Feeling | Who Framed Roger Rabbit | Gremlins 2: The New Batch
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