This film is solid family entertainment that kind of looses its steam closer to the end. The start of this film is brilliant. The satire of Hollywood is dead on. Bugs Bunny is about to make a new picture, but Daffy Duck wants more respect. Warner Bros. exec Kate (Jenna Elfman, TV’s DARHMA & GREG) shows the other execs that Daffy isn’t as popular as Bugs in addition to being difficult. So she fires Daffy and recruits security guard/wanna-be stunt man DJ Drake (Brendan Fraser, GODS & MONSTERS) to kick Daffy off the studio lot.
The beginning is zany and truly captures the feel of the classic Looney Tunes. Director Joe Dante (GREMLINS) and animation director Eric Goldberg (FANTASIA/2000) have obvious respect for the source material unlike so many associated with the dreg that was SPACE JAM. The in-jokes fly fast and furious. Two of my favorite bits are Shaggy and Scooby confronting Matthew Lillard about his performance in SCOOBY-DOO and Fraser as DJ Drake commenting about Brendan Fraser in THE MUMMY movies.
The “plot” revolves around DJ’s father Damien Drake (Timothy Dalton, LICENCE TO KILL), who plays a spy in movies and is really one in real life. He is kidnapped by the Acme Company, which is run by Mr. Chairman (Steve Martin, HOUSESITTER), who wants find the location of the Blue Monkey diamond, which can turn people into monkeys. All the sections that deal with the plot tend to be the worst in the picture.
Martin, who is typically very funny, is sadly unfunny here, playing his character as a maniacal nerd. There’s lots of product placement in the film, but some of it is naturally funny like the hyper Daffy drinking Jolt soda. However, there is a major product placement with Wal-Mart that tries to make fun of product placements that is really awkward.
The beginning of the film has a manic screwball comedy pace that I loved, but the film gets bogged down in its “story” later on in the film. Don’t get me wrong, the whole film has funny moments (the visit to the Lourve and Area 52 come to mind), but it just starts to drag instead of speeding up at the end. When all is said and done, this film is a major improvement from SPACE JAM and reminds me why the original Looney Tunes were so great — wonderfully paced manic humor and no lame live-action storylines. BACK IN ACTION provides enough of the former to forget about the latter.
Rick DeMott
Animation World Network
Creator of Rick's Flicks Picks
