Sunday, 30 March 2025

OUT NOW: Looney Tunes - The Day the World Blew Up (Pete Browngardt, 2025)

Raised as siblings, Daffy and Porky (Eric Bauza) are forced to get jobs when their home is damaged by a UFO.


Said UFO puts all their plans in jeopardy when its occupant (Peter MacNicol) sabotages the local chewing gum factory, infecting the gum with a mind-controlling substance that turns everyone who chews the gum into zombies.


Can our heroes save the day?



I have not watched Looney Tunes since I was a kid.

 

I caught a couple of episodes uploaded to YouTube, and watched Patrick Willem’s video essay on Looney Tunes since the 90s.


That primer put this movie on my radar.


I also felt a certain desire to put my money where my mouth was with regards to the Zaslav regime’s disdain for its library (the other Looney Tunes feature, Coyote v Acme, remains in limbo).


My screening was completely empty so maybe the suits were right to sell it off.


I wanted to like this more.


The key issue is the medium - this is a feature film, not a short subject.


The need to build a narrative structure, with character development, feels antithetical to the anarchy of the characters.


The film is at its strongest when it focuses on set-pieces that play to the characters’ strengths - their bizarre, stylised origin story; a montage covering their attempts at various occupations.


These scenes have clean comic premises that work to their characters’ strengths. 


When the movie forces itself into a story, with our heroes as estranged brothers, it starts to feel less fleet-footed.


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