Adopted siblings and best buds Porky Pig and Daffy Duck (both voiced by Eric Bauza) are struggling to find a job to raise funds for their crumbling house, until they come across an earth-shattering conspiracy that involves an infected chewing gum that can turn humans into body-snatching zombies. Also, there’s an alien invasion and a meteorite headed towards Earth. Just another day in a “looney” world!
Expectedly nonsensical comedy is a surprisingly sincere tribute to vintage B-movies. After Space Jam and its inferior sequel (and that Brendan Fraser one, which we might have collectively forgotten), the Looney Tunes’ anthropomorphic loons finally make their cinematic debut in full-fledged animated form. No Michael Jordans to be found here. But despite these characters dominating our popular imagination for generations (barring the politically incorrect shorts that haven’t aged well), this new Looney Tunes film feels more than a mere cash-grab. In fact, The Day the Earth Blew Up was never even meant for the cinemas, being shelved after Warner Bros merged with Discovery. After all the delays and budget cuts, WB finally sold off the distribution rights to Ketchup Entertainment. Is it worth it after all that back-and-forth business? The answer is, to quote Daffy, “WOO-HOO”. Director Peter Browngardt and the Eric Bauza-led voicecast deliver a compelling premise that unexpectedly becomes this generation’s answer to Cold War-era epics like The Day the Earth Stood Still and Invasion of the Body Snatchers. The tribute isn’t just evident in scene-to-scene recreations but also in the larger plot, which pits the self-professed “looney” Daffy Duck’s ardent belief in conspiracy theories against mild-mannered Porky’s rational rejection of a “chewing gum plot to take over the world”. It makes for a brilliant thriller, which finds Daffy and Porky finding the most unconventional solutions to their most unconventional problems. And that’s where the film also modernizes its source material to chuckles and grins (even if you’re numb to the classic, bone-breaking slapstick).
The classic gags from the source material are supported with ample Gen-Z humor and self-aware satire. Laser prisons are broken down with rivers of tears that swell up and break down the “Hoover Dam” of our protagonists’ eyes. To make ends meet and pay his rent, Daffy swells up his bottom and dances to raunchy music. Treading between outlandish and outrageous visual gags, the script (penned by a troupe of 11 writers) is laced with enough satire to make it apt for not just the dreamy-eyed younglings but also the bleaker adults accompanying them. So, when scientist and Porky’s love interest, Petunia Pig, asks our ham-fisted hero about his day job, he meekly replies he’s in the middle of “a career transition”. Well, unpredictable economies call for even our childhood cartoons to be somewhat existential. Even when Porky and Daffy get a job as assembly-line factory workers, a rude human boss ridicules them for smiling through a minimum wage gig with no benefits. Even Warner Bros. – the studio giant that financed the Looney Tunes in its golden age and then abandoned it amidst acquisitions and streaming wars – isn’t spared with a studio executive’s silhouette randomly popping up on the screen, asking the audience who even greenlit this project.
The rare studio film that reinvents an overlong franchise…and still delivers. In a box-office dominated by endlessly mediocre Disney live-action remakes, resurrected Marvel characters, and AI-centric decisions, The Day the Earth Blew Up seems like that one sole franchise film that justifies its very existence. One can be glad it got greenlit, proving that a pre-existing IP can be saved with classic gags recycled with a modern twist and two lovable buffoons as heroes. The absence of a cocky trickster like Bugs Bunny isn’t missed. And even though Daffy and Porky have usually been at odds with each other in the past, it’s strangely heartwarming to see them reimagined as brothers. Maybe a cash-grab sequel would spoil the fun, but for now, this is hilarious to the core and “that’s all folks”!
The new Looney Tunes film is bonkers in the truest sense, but it never descends to the level of “brainrot” slop. And with sincere nods to retro sci-fi and horror, it makes for an effective alien invasion adventure.
Looney Tunes: The Day the Earth Blew Up is showing in select theaters (UK).