Looney Tunes: Back in Action
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Looney Tunes: Back in Action |
| Original title | Looney Tunes: Back in Action |
 | |
| Country of production |
United States Germany |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 2003 |
| length | 91 minutes |
| Age rating |
FSK 6 JMK 0 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Joe Dante |
| script | Larry Doyle |
| production |
Bernie Goldmann Joel Simon Paula Weinstein |
| music | Jerry Goldsmith |
| camera | Dean Cundey |
| cut |
Rick Finney Marshall Harvey |
| occupation | |
| |
Looney Tunes: Back in Action is an American comedy film from the year 2003 . The film, based on the cartoon series Looney Tunes, combines cartoon characters with recordings of the real world. Directed by Joe Dante , the screenplay was written by Larry Doyle .
action
Daffy Duck , who works for the Warner Bros. film studio , feels disadvantaged in his roles compared to Bugs Bunny . He demands better contract conditions from the manager Kate Houghton, whereupon she dismisses him. Meanwhile, the security guard DJ Drake applies as a stuntman , but is not accepted. He is then supposed to watch out for Daffy Duck on his way out, but this causes some destruction on the studio premises. DJ is therefore also fired.
Daffy Duck goes home with the DJ because he has nowhere else to stay. They talk about DJ's father Damian Drake, who, in a role as top spy, is a well-known actor. Daffy Duck, on the other hand, considers him a real spy, which, as it soon turns out, is also true. Damian was kidnapped by Mr. Chairman, the board member of ACME . Its goal is to usurp world domination with the help of a diamond called The Blue Monkey . Damian knows where to find the diamond. He manages to get in touch with his son and ask for help. Dusty Tails will act as the contact person in Las Vegas . So DJ and Daffy are on their way there. Dusty turns out to be a killer and spy who works outwardly under the mask of a singer. The two of them receive a playing card from her, a queen of diamonds, which Damian should have gotten.
Meanwhile, Warner Bros. management has determined that Daffy Duck's dismissal was a mistake and is deciding to reverse it. Kate is therefore assigned to bring Daffy back. With the help of bugs, she finds out that he is in Las Vegas, and so the two of them set off there in Damian's car, a sports car equipped with various extras. Just arrived they bump into DJ and Daffy, who have to defend themselves against the efforts of Yosemite Sam and two of his cronies to get the map as well. All four finally manage to escape from the city.
Damian's car takes her to her mother , a scientist who researches aliens in a mysterious facility called Area 52 . There they get more information about Damian's assignment and DJ decides to finish it instead of his father. You will also learn that the diamond is able to send out rays that transform humans into monkeys and back again. They also receive a message that the playing card has something to do with the painting of the Mona Lisa , which can be found in the Louvre in Paris . In the meantime, Marvin the Martian , who is also being held captive in the research station, has received an order by radio from Mr. Chairman to get the playing card. He frees himself and the other aliens, causing a veritable chaos, but ultimately remains unsuccessful because the four manage to escape. When they arrived in Paris, they discovered that there was a transparent film on the playing card. Viewed through this, the painting shows a map of Africa, on which the location of the diamond can be seen. Kate takes a picture of this view with her cell phone. Mr. Smith, who was sent to Paris by Mr. Chairman, succeeded in stealing the cell phone. So now both sides know that the next destination is Africa.
Once there, DJ first manages to get his hands on the diamond, but Mr. Chairman also shows up there. Eventually, all five are teleported to ACME's headquarters with a special weapon. Mr. Chairman can get the diamond and he instructs Marvin to head for a satellite with a spaceship and to install the gemstone there so that it can develop its effect worldwide. Daffy and Bugs also manage to get possession of a spaceship, and so they pursue Marvin. In the final battle on the satellite, Daffy, who slipped into the role of the space hero Duck Dodgers , wins out over Marvin, who is drifting off into space.
Meanwhile on earth, DJ and Kate were captured and tied up by Mr. Chairman. Damian lies tied up on railroad tracks on which a train is approaching at breakneck speed. DJ and Kate can first free themselves and after a fight with an oversized dog, DJ manages at the last second to save his father from certain death. Back at the headquarters they discover that the diamond, before it was destroyed, was able to emit exactly one beam from the satellite. This met Mr. Chairman, who is now a monkey. In the end, Bugs Daffy admits that he is now his equal.
Reviews
Roger Ebert wrote in the Chicago Sun-Times on November 14, 2003 that the film was made in a spirit similar to Wrong Game with Roger Rabbit , but was not as inspired.
Luke Sader wrote in The Hollywood Reporter on November 10, 2003 that the film would never be confused with the "groundbreaking" False Game starring Roger Rabbit , but neither did it disappoint. Joe Dante is the "ideal" choice as a director of such films as Gremlins - Little Monsters and The Journey into Self ; the “absurd” action shows “thrust”.
The lexicon of international films wrote that the "episodically narrated mixture of real and animated films" offers "some amusing trick plays", but suffers severely from "an unimaginative script" and "listless real actors".
Awards
The film for Best Animated Film and the music by Jerry Goldsmith were nominated for a Saturn Award in 2004. The film was nominated for the 2004 Golden Satellite Award and the Online Film Critics Society Award for Best Animated Film . The film also received four 2004 Annie Awards nominations .
backgrounds
The film was shot in Los Angeles and the other locations in Southern California and Las Vegas . Its production amounted to an estimated 80 million US dollars . The film grossed approximately $ 20.95 million in US cinemas. Global revenues totaled only about $ 68.5 million. It is therefore considered a financial flop .
The paintings Elmer chases Bugs and Daffy through in the museum are The Persistence of Memory by Salvador Dalí , The Scream by Edvard Munch , a Moulin Rouge poster by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte by Georges Seurat . The stored music comes from pictures at an exhibition by Modest Mussorgski , the Hell Can-Can from Orpheus in the Underworld by Jacques Offenbach and the Concerto for Mandolin and String Orchestra, RV 425 , by Antonio Vivaldi .
The vice presidents of ACME are not named by their actual names, but by their functions or properties. These partly sarcastic , partly absurd terms are:
- Bad ideas (Bad ideas) : Mary Woronov
- Speaks out what is already obvious (stating the obvious) : Marc Lawrence
- Corinthian nitpicking : Bill McKinney
- Unjustifiably promoted (unfairly Promoted) : George Murdock
- Rhetorical Questions : Robert Picardo
- Never learns something (to) (Never learning) : Ron Perlman
- Child labor (child labor) : Vernon Wells
- Climbing to the top (on the career ladder) : Leo Rossi
The two main characters' vehicles are an AMC Gremlin that DJ and Daffy use, and a TVR Tuscan Speed 6 that Kate and Bugs use. The latter has installed various (fictional) extras, as can also be seen in the cars that James Bond uses in his films. When calling Mother as the destination, the navigation device displays the image Arrangement in gray and black: Portrait of the artist's mother by James McNeill Whistler .
In Area 52 bugs out, after mother has brought an alien means of a spring laugh up a sign, on which a screw ( English screw ) and a ball can be seen. In the English language, the term screwball refers to a strange, bizarre, also unpredictable person, as she was often embodied in the screwball comedies by the female leading actors.
References to aliens and science fiction films
The name of Area 52 refers to Area 51 , a restricted military area in Nevada , where, according to conspiracy theorists and ufologists , the United States maintains contacts with aliens and experiments with their technologies. Also in the southwest of the USA is the small town of Roswell , near which an unknown flying object of extraterrestrial origin is said to have crashed in 1947 . Even if there is no conclusive evidence to support this claim, this event, dubbed the Roswell incident , is part of American popular culture. The supposed appearance of the aliens is reflected both in the Santilli film, which has meanwhile been exposed as a fake, about the autopsy of a recovered corpse and in the being in Area 52 that is tickled by mother. A plaque in the background refers to the event at this point, as it says: Area 52. Keeping things from the American People since 1947 .
Many of the aliens that appear in Area 52 are actually well-known movie monsters from the 1950s and 1960s. The serviceable robot is “Robby” from the 1956 film Alarm im Weltall . Among the trapped aliens are two Daleks from the long-running, well-known science fiction television series Doctor Who (1963 to today), a mutant from the film Metaluna IV does not answer from 1955, the ape-like alien from Robot Monster from 1953, the visitor from space from The Man from Planet X (1951) and the living brain with stalk eyes from the 1958 film Fiend Without a Face. The one-eyed creature with the The club-shaped head and the arms, which look like Venus flytraps, are reminiscent of the concept of extraterrestrial plants that do mischief on earth, implemented on film, for example, in the Triffids from Flowers of Terror from 1962. There are also indirect references to the so-called bug movies in which oversized arthropods spread fear and terror, such as spiders in Tarantula from 1955 or ants in Formicula from 1954.
You can briefly see an older man who is carrying an oversized pod as if from a legume and murmuring a warning to himself. This is a direct reference to the 1955 film The Demonic , in which humans are replaced by insensitive doppelgangers by extraterrestrial invaders. The main character of The Demonic was Kevin McCarthy , who also plays the older man. Like the pod, it is black and white.
Two further references to science fiction films from the period mentioned are no longer included in the final version of the film, but can be seen in the representation of the deleted scenes on the DVD. While Daffy is being prepared for his reverse transformation, material from a fly spills into the fluid it is made of at the time. After its restoration, it shows characteristics of the insect, just as it was the doom of the scientist Delambre in 1958 in Die Fliege . In the Africa sequence, Daffy is eaten by a carnivorous plant and his face then appears in one of the flowers. The same happened to the victims of the Audrey Jr. plant. in Roger Corman's little shop full of horror from 1960.
There are also numerous allusions to the science fiction film Star Wars (1977), for example, towards the end of the film, Bugs Bunny activates a laser beam that comes out of one of his carrots to fight Marvin. Its “bubble gun” is reminiscent of a soap bubble gun , a toy that was particularly popular with children during the late 1960s.
Cameo appearances
In the film, a number of personalities made a cameo . The director of the Batman film is Roger Corman . In the restaurant you can see the cartoon characters Scooby-Doo and Shaggy sitting at a table with Matthew Lillard . He had played the role of Shaggy in the real-life version of Scooby-Doo the year before . In the short conversation he is criticized by the comic book Shaggy for his portrayal. The young man who Yosemite Sam and his cronies stole his sports car from outside the casino is Jeff Gordon , a well-known racing driver. Peter Graves can be seen in the recorded film in Area 52 , in which the background to the diamond is explained . The representation corresponds to the pattern in which Graves in the television series Kobra, take over when Jim Phelps receives his respective assignment at the beginning of the respective episode. In Africa, Michael Jordan appears briefly in the transformation sequence . Jordan had previously made a film with Bugs and Daffy called Space Jam .
Appearances by cartoon characters
In addition to the aforementioned Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Marvin and Yosemite Sam, a number of other cartoon characters also appear in the film. With two exceptions, they come from the comic book universe of Looney Toons. Some of these roles are part of the plot, others are more in the background.
The hunter Elmer , seen in the opening sequences as well as in the Louvre, is their opponent in several short films with Bugs and Daffy. Wile E. Coyote is used by Mr. Chairman as an assassin, but fails just as spectacularly as in his own films in which he tries to catch the Roadrunner, who can also be seen briefly. Typical for the stripes is, as here in the film, the order of some kind of equipment and aids from ACME as well as a short still image, underlaid with an invented Latin name. After Wiles' failure, Taz , the Tasmanian devil , comes in , as well as the mad scientist Dr. Lorre, which is also based on the appearance of Peter Lorre .
Speedy Gonzales and Piggy Dick are talking to each other in the restaurant scene . The latter ends the film, as in many Looney Toons episodes, looking out of red concentric rings. Scooby-Doo and Shaggy one table down are the only characters who do not belong to the Looney Toons, but rather come from Hanna-Barbera . In the background, Sam Sheepdog and Ralph Wolf spend their lunch break together. Not a problem in itself, although they are bitter opponents, they see their role only as a completely normal job. However, when Ralph unpacks a sheep from his pocket for lunch, which he has obviously stolen from Sam's herd, he is beaten up by him. The singing and dancing frog at the next table is Michigan J. Frog. He deviates from his normal role here, because otherwise he only sings and dances when no other people are present besides his nameless owner. The latter also appears briefly, puts the frog in a box and disappears again.
Crusher can be seen as an assessor in the unsuccessful application of DJs as a stuntman. The Drake's neighbors are Sylvester, Tweety, and Granny . They also appear in the Africa sequence, but are only disguises under which Mr. Chairman and his helpers hide.
Yosemite Sam's Las Vegas pals are bearded Nasty Canasta and Cottontail Smith. Foghorn Leghorn has a double role as an announcer for Dusty Tail's appearance and as a dealer at Black Jack . During the brawl in the casino, DJ falls onto a table with seven cartoon dogs playing poker. The composition of the round corresponds to the painting A Friend in Need from the Dogs Playing Poker series by CM Coolidge . The dogs involved in the game are Willoughby (far left), Charlie Dog (back left, with the little flower), Barnyard Dawgg (far right) and Spike and Chester (back center and right). Ham and Ex (in front) secretly hand each other cards under the table, as in the original.
Pepé le Pew has short appearances in Paris as a police officer, the three bears as tourists and as a helicopter pilot Beaky Buzzard. The latter is supposed to be a buzzard , but graphically it is more like a condor or a vulture .
On the screen that Mr. Chairman uses to communicate with his assistants, a film with a singing owl appears several times. The film from 1936 is called I Love to Singa , the owl Owl Jolson. At the end of the film, a number of other characters can be seen giving carrots to bugs on his limousine. There appear: Charlie Dog, the cat Heathcliff from Dough Ray Me-Ow , Marc Antony with the kitten Pussyfoot on his back, the squirrel from Much Ado About Nutting , Gruesome Gorilla, Egghead and Hippety Hopper.
Web links
- Looney Tunes: Back in Action in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Looney Tunes: Back in Action at Rotten Tomatoes (English)
- Looney Tunes: Back in Action at Metacritic (English)
- Looney Tunes: Back in Action in the online movie database
- Looney Tunes: Back in Action in the German dubbing file
- Looney Tunes: Back In Action on the Looney Tunes Fan Wiki
Individual evidence
- ↑ Release certificate for Looney Tunes: Back in Action . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , November 2003 (PDF; test number: 96 001 K).
- ↑ Age rating for Looney Tunes: Back in Action . Youth Media Commission .
- ^ Film review by Roger Ebert, accessed on October 18, 2007
- ↑ Film review by Luke Sader, accessed on October 18, 2007 ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Looney Tunes: Back in Action in the Lexicon of International Films , accessed October 18, 2007
- ^ Filming locations for Looney Tunes: Back in Action, accessed October 18, 2007
- ↑ Box office / business for Looney Tunes: Back in Action, accessed October 18, 2007
- ↑ Looney Tunes: Back in Action at Box Office Mojo , accessed on May 18, 2014 (English)
- ↑ Looney Toons - Back in Action in the Internet Movie Cars Database, accessed May 13, 2013
- ↑ Howling in Innerspace with Piranhas: The Kevin McCarthy / Joe Dante Connection ( Memento of the original from May 18, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on a website with information on monster and horror films, accessed May 18, 2014
