Hi, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab...
I don’t want to spread bad word about this film. I really don’t. I like Joe Dante. I like him as a film nut. He’s always up at the Egyptian, especially around the time of the film noir festival each year. He’s an avid film collector and historian. I like him as a filmmaker, too. I think he’s got a knack for cartoon mayhem that’s right on par with John Landis’s knack for the unlikely impromptu musical number. I know that Dante has always had a deep, abiding love for Warner Bros. cartoons, and he tried to get a sort of M*A*S*H*-like biopic about the animators of Termite Terrace up off the ground at one point.
I say all this to preface the fact that I hear this movie stinks on ice. I hear it from several places. I hope it’s just one of those things where people saw something early in the animation process and they didn’t totally have it worked out yet, and that it’s gotten better as they’ve worked on it. I would love for this to be the film that finally erases the horrible aftertaste of SPACE JAM, a brutal prison-rape of the beloved characters in order to sell basketball shoes. I want this to be the Warner Bros. that brought us IRON GIANT, and not the studio that proudly gave us THE QUEST FOR CAMELOT.
So let’s see what someone thought of the film...
Call me the Apple's Worm.
Just a minor review. Saw an early-stage test screening of Looney Toons: Back in Action last night. I won't give many spoilers 'cause if anyone reading this gets dragged to this with the kids, the least I can do for you is preserve the few pleasant surprises the movie has to offer.
I'm not an altogether die-hard fan of the Looney Toons ... I watched them as a kid as any red-blooded American child must, but today retain very little passion for the characters. I did, however, have two of my daughters, age 7, with me.
The test screening was aimed at kids 7-12, so my daughters were at the far low end of that range (and even then only so by a few months ... they turned 7 at the end of May).
From an adult perspective, the show had very little to offer. Much of the animation was in an unfinished state, of course, but much of what *was* in a "finished looking" state had technical problems (live-action characters looking over the heads of the animated characters, shading subtleties like how a character should look slightly different through the bottom half of a half-rolled-down car windo than the top half, things like that) although of course these might just still need a few passes through the system to get fixed (the NRG guy insisted that the finished-looking animation was finished and we should imagine the unfinished animation looked as good as the colored-in bits).
Laughs were few and far between in the test audience. The best laughs actually came from a Wal*Mart product placement in the middle of the film. Personally, my favorite scene was Shaggy from Scooby Doo chewing out his live-action film actor, saying he made him look bad and threatening to sic Scooby on him. But that was in the first twenty minutes of the film.
The plot (we don' need no steenkin plot!) centers around the head of the Acme Corporation (Steve Martin) wanting to do evil things to the world's population (I won't give details in case someone takes their kids to this, but the details of the plan were worthy of a half-smile at least), and of course Daffy Duck, Bugs Bunny, an exec at Warner Bros (Dharma herself ... Jenna Elfman) and a stuntman wanna-be rent-a-cop (Mr. Mummy; Brendan Fraser) are the only ones who might be able to stop it.
Too hammy for my taste: Mr Dalton (I know he's a better actor than this! Even his no-animation scenes he looked confused!), and Mr Martin (way, over-the-top, goofy ... some might love the character though!).
Best overall location: Area 52 ... yeah, I'm a geek ...
Family-friendliness: Mostly good, but the sexual innuendo in Vegas with "Dusty Tail" was a bit out of place ...
Kids' impressions: Said they liked it, liked Bugs Bunny ... Then talked about Finding Nemo all the way home ...
The thing that scares me most about this film is that it reportedly turns into some sort of half-baked cross between CONGO and WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT in the last third. It sounds hellish. Again... I hope and pray that this is one of those films that only really comes into focus in the final hours, just as they cross the finish line. Nothing would delight me more. But the things I’ve heard... dear GOD... the things I’ve heard...
"Moriarty" out.
