Looney Tunes: Back in Action Movie Adaptation

    (DC, 2003)
™ and ©2003 Warner Bros. Entertainment

How is Looney Tunes: Back in Action as a movie adaptation? Not having seen the film, I have no idea. But, as a comic book, it stands on its own merits.

Many otherwise grown-ups are huge fans of classic Warner Brothers cartoons. Those cartoons are smart and savvy with just enough self-referential humor to be clever rather than self-indulgent. The regular Looney Tunes comics are generally kiddie fare. Sure, they toss in an occasional cameo or in-joke for old-timers, but it’s really the kids they’re after.

This comic book (and, ostensibly, the movie upon which it is based) is replete with the sass, humor, and frenetic pace that made us love Looney Tunes in the first place.

The commentary on the differences between the toons in their early days and now is both funny and apt. These include a luncheon of characters with speech impediments or racial stereotypes and Bugs being “dressed down” for his cross-dressing.

For the most part, the art faithfully toes the line between “toon-style” and “human-style,” differentiating between things that were live-action and things that were animated in the film. The sole, but recurring, exception to this is star Jenna Elfman. The depiction of the Dharma and Greg star is perhaps more detailed than an Al Hirschfeld caricature, but not much. Elfman looks more toon than human.

— Jack Abramowitz
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