This week, we’ll be treated to a sequel to Space Jam, the 1996 Michael Jordan/Bugs Bunny movie that has amassed a nostalgic following despite being quite poor. When you watch Space Jam, you’re watching a branding exercise for Michael Jordan and his many endorsements with the Looney Tunes awkwardly along for the ride. It’s a poorly animated, easy cash-in designed to sell Happy Meal toys while also reigniting Jordan fever after his failed attempt at making it as a baseball star (a real-life event that Space Jam turns into a plot point). While Space Jam was a hit, it didn’t really do justice to Looney Tunes (and arguably was never intended to; it’s Jordan’s show with the Looney Tunes characters along to broaden the appeal to all kids, not just those who were fans of the NBA superstar). A far better film actually did do right by Bugs in the gang, and yet that film has vanished so much into the ether that you can’t even find it on HBO Max.
2003’s Looney Tunes: Back in Action is the live-action/cartoon mash-up that understands why these characters, popularized in the 1930s, 40s, and 50s by Chuck Jones and Tex Avery among other directors, have endured and their unique combination of manic and clever energy that allows them to be, well, loony, while also integrating high art like opera or classical music. That’s a tricky balance to pull off, especially in the 21st century, but director Joe Dante, who had already managed that kind of brilliant/manic combination with movies like Gremlins, Innerspace, and Matinee, was well-suited to giving the Looney Tunes center stage and trusting them to carry the picture. They do so beautifully, and the resulting picture feels like the movie the characters deserve rather than simply utilizing them because they happen to be Warner Bros’ intellectual property.
The funny thing here is that like the upcoming Space Jam: A New Legacy, Back in Action also acknowledges that Looney Tunes are owned by Warner Bros. and there’s a big studio apparatus that makes movies and also owns stuff like Scooby-Doo. But in Back in Action, it works because it manages to shrink WB down to simply a studio rather than a corporate behemoth that has its tendrils in every property you love. In this way, Back in Action feels more like Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, a live-action/animated mash-up where beleaguered humans have to deal with wacky cartoon characters who live in the same world as opposed to the Space Jam movies where an NBA star travels into the Looney Tunes’ world and has the toons play his game.
The plot here is that Daffy Duck and studio lot security guard/aspiring stuntman Damian “D.J.” Drake (Brendan Fraser) are both fired after a chase that knocks down the WB watertower, but it turns out D.J.’s dad (Timothy Dalton) is an actor-playing-a-spy-who-is-actually-a-spy-pretending-to-be-an-actor, and he was hunting down the fabled Blue Monkey diamond. While chasing down the diamond, D.J. and Daffy are being chased by WB’s VP of Comedy Kate Houghton (Jenna Elfman) and Bugs Bunny, who need Daffy back in WB pictures or Kate will be fired. However, the ACME corporation, led by Mr. Chairman (Steve Martin), also wants the diamond for his own nefarious plot, and proceeds to send the Looney Tunes baddies (Elmer Fudd, the Tasmanian Devil, Marvin the Martian, et al.) to stop our quartet of heroes.
Dante understands pitching his movie at zany heights to capture the energy of the Looney Tunes rather than creating friction between a basketball star with limited acting ability and his manic co-stars. You get a much better picture when you’ve got humans acting cartoony and treating the Looney Tunes as co-stars rather than a nuisance who must learn to be good at basketball. Fraser, Elfman, and especially Martin are playing at the levels of a cartoon. They know how to mug for the camera, treat their co-stars as the real leads of the picture, and act accordingly, which makes the overall movie stronger because it’s not torn between serving the brand management of an athlete while also trying to do right by the Looney Tunes.
And when you do right by the Looney Tunes, you get a funnier movie. Looney Tunes has endured not out of nostalgia, but because the mix of characters and their antics are genuinely funny. The wise-cracking Bugs and the egotistical Daffy are a great pair and always have been, so why not put them at the front of the movie? It’s fine to pepper the rest of the movie with other Looney Tunes characters, but Back in Action knows that it’s best to have two strong characters in the front rather than see if they can jam in a bunch of other familiar faces with no one really getting a chance to shine. Dante and writer Larry Doyle knew that it was better to tell quality Bugs and Daffy jokes than load upon a quantity of other characters and just throw everything at a wall to see what sticks.
Looney Tunes: Back in Action holds up remarkably well because it understands its strengths rather than simply being a piece of IP made to bolster a brand. Sadly, audiences in 2003 felt differently, and Back in Actionwas a major flop that basically sent the Looney Tunes into cold storage. What’s more frustrating is that there hasn’t really been the opportunity to give the film a second life, and Warner Bros' bizarrely won't even put Back in Action on HBO Max (but you can find the original Space Jam). But perhaps this is just the lot in life for Looney Tunes: Back in Action—to be a film that’s “for the fans” rather than those who would prefer to see the toons shooting hoops with basketball royalty.
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