Looney Tunes is an American institution. Everybody and their mother—and likely their mother’s mother—knows who Bugs Bunny, Marvin the Martian, and Taz are. The franchise has been going strong for nearly a century, but recent events have resulted in their cache getting stuck in limbo. The heavily maligned cancellation of the Coyote vs. Acme flick and the bleak effect of LeBron James’ Space Jam sequel have left devotees wondering if there was even a place for these characters in the modern marketplace?
Inherently, Looney Tunes is an animated franchise. However, the series has lost track of that in recent years, particularly when it comes to the characters being transferred to theaters. Ever since the unbridled success of Space Jam (1996), Warner Bros. has been seemingly hellbent on transposing the animated players to live-action environments with fleshy co-stars, including in 2003’s mega-flop Looney Tunes: Back in Action. Needless to say, the series was in desperate need of a return to form. So enters The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie.
Zany hijinks have been the bread and butter of Looney Tunes for decades. The franchise, which first began as a series of animated shorts in the 1930s, has always focused heavily on over-the-top scenarios with ridiculously high stakes for animated animals to grapple with. Characters would regale the audience with their exaggerated voices while being chased by a hunter, pursued by a vicious predator, or trying to impress a cat whilst pretending to be one. Recurring jokes and small vignettes of ludicrous moments were a mainstay of Looney Tunes, and The Day the Earth Blew Up is the first Looney Tunes anything in ages to understand that heritage.
In the new film, Daffy Duck and Porky Pig find themselves in an unfamiliar place (at least since the 1950s): as the stars of the show. The decision to shift the focus away from Bugs Bunny, a first for a theatrically released Looney Tunes film, is a bold one. In fact, only the aforementioned characters and Pentunia Pig represent the original Looney Tunes cast, with no mention or reference to Bugs, Sylvester, or the rest of the gang. This could have resulted in feeling detached from the intellectual property, but the very essence of Looney Tunes is instead captured here.
Porky Pig and Daffy Duck also find themselves in an unusually tense situation, even by their standards. As a meteor hurls towards the Earth, the cartoon legends must find a way to stop it and the nefarious schemes of an alien, credited as “The Invader” (voiced by Peter MacNicol). The Invader’s villainous ambition is as familiar as they come. It features a mind-control concept sparked by chewing gum, and anyone who has seen The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie (2004) or the Rick and Morty episode “Air Force Wong” will feel as if they’re experiencing deja vu. With that said, a third-act plot development from the enigmatic alien holds a genuinely unpredictable twist. Furthermore, the character journeys for our lead Looneys are commendable, if not a tad generic, providing a good message for the likely family-friendly audience this film will skew.
Daffy Duck and Porky Pig, both impressively voiced by Eric Bauza, still can make magnetic leads in a story after all these years. While they aren’t a wise-cracking rabbit, the duo have more than enough charisma to command their own feature. An opening credits montage of their upbringing, which contains a brief origin story for Porky Pig’s iconic stutter, perfectly sets the scene for the style of humor ever present throughout the 90-minute runtime. The pair’s adopted father, Farmer Jim, voiced by Fred Tatasciore, works as a hilarious foil between the two all while providing an emotional, albeit brief, connection to the audience.
Unfortunately, it should probably be no surprise that a film with 11 credited writers feels a bit uneven, and no component of the screenplay is more emblematic of this than the main humor. There are a few laugh out loud moments. The exception of giggles that do come include a shoutout to stimulus checks, a joke all too relatable for any parents in the workforce during the COVID lockdowns, and a recurring gag revolving around an alien’s love for boba tea. On the flip side, some bits fall harder on their face than Wile E. Coyote off the side of a mesa. This is cemented by a short montage of Daffy Duck attempting to become a social media influencer. This bit and other jokes like it read as attempts by Gen-X to appeal to Gen-Z, a la the Steve Buscemi 30 Rock meme.
The film plays with a few fourth-wall breaking moments, a mainstay of the Looney Tunes franchise for decades. These sequences hit when they occur, but they are few and far between, and unfortunately two of the best were spoiled in the trailer. The movie might’ve benefitted from increasing their presence. The Day the Earth Blew Up is additionally littered with random montages, one dance number in particular revolving around a gum assembly line felt particularly out of place, furthering the feelings of inconsistency present with the humor of the film. We suspect the filmmakers were likely homaging the Looney Tunes shorts of old with these sequences, but their inclusion bogs down the main storyline with their increasing randomness.
Finally, the animation style of the flick is somehow simultaneously fresh and underwhelming. It is theoretically nice to watch a feature-length studio production rendered with hand-drawn characters, or at least a digital approximation of them, but in this particular iteration, the aesthetic looked cheap for a theatrically released film. While hand-drawn cartoons certainly have a place in modern multiplexes, as seen beautifully in the Oscar-winning movie The Boy and the Heron (2023), The Day the Earth Blew Up feels more akin to a Saturday morning cartoon in the mid-2000s with its animation style.
Perhaps the movie was better suited for a streaming release on Max, ironically where Warner Bros. sent their last finished Looney Tunes project, Space Jam: A New Legacy. While we certainly champion the theatergoing experience, nothing about this Looney Tunes movie justifies a trip to the cinema.
Ultimately, The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie was a breath of fresh air for a franchise plagued with inconsistent results and controversy in recent years. The animated flick by no means reinvented the wheel, but it’ll serve as quality entertainment for younger audiences with plenty of engaging gags for adults.
Looney Tunes: The Day the Earth Blew Up opens in theaters on Friday, March 14. Learn more about Den of Geek’s review process and why you can trust our recommendations here.
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