6.3 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
The Looney Tunes search for a man's missing father and the mythical Blue Monkey diamond.
Starring: Brendan Fraser, Jenna Elfman, Steve Martin, Timothy Dalton, Heather LocklearFamily | 100% |
Comedy | 96% |
Animation | 89% |
Adventure | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.40:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
Spanish: Dolby Digital 5.1 (640 kbps)
Spanish: Dolby Digital 5.1 (640 kbps)
German: Dolby Digital 5.1 (640 kbps)
Portuguese: Dolby Digital 5.1
Spanish=Latin and Castilian
English SDH, French, Spanish, Portuguese, German
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region free
Movie | 3.5 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 3.0 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
If ever a director was born to make a Looney Tunes movie, it was Joe Dante, whose Gremlins and Gremlins 2: The New Batch were infused with the same enthusiastically anarchic spirit that had made Warner's classic cartoon franchise a favorite among young and old. But as Dante discovered when he tried to persuade Warner to make a film about the early career of legendary animator Chuck Jones, the studio wasn't interested in "old stuff". They wanted to "rebrand" the Looney Tunes characters for the 21st Century. The result, overseen by music video director Joe Pytka, was the 1996 release Space Jam, which was only modestly successful, primarily with kids who didn't know the old classics. When Space Jam 2 fell apart, Warner asked Dante to helm a second live-action Looney Tune film initially titled "Spy Jam". Then the studio did what studios usually do when they're unsure of their choice—they undermined the director at every turn. The result, retitled Looney Tunes: Back in Action, satisfied neither Warner nor Dante and was booted from its planned summer release in 2003 into the fall, where it opened with little promotion to disastrous box office. The studio-induced failure prompted Warner to shut down its Feature Animation department, which is why Warner now produces animation solely for TV. The taint left on Back in Action by this corporate mismanagement is undeserved, however, because, despite the many obstacles placed in his path, Dante managed to get far more of the original Looney Tunes spirit into the film than anyone might have expected. The script was penned by Larry Doyle, a veteran of The Simpsons and Beavis and Butt-head, and all the studio meddling in the world couldn't entirely purge its rebellious spirit. Unlike his corporate masters, Dante understood what the Looney Tunes characters were all about. If they were going to be "updated", it wouldn't be by some cheesy trick like having Bugs Bunny do hip-hop. It would be Dante's way, like having Porky Pig and Speedy Gonazles sit in the Warner cafeteria complaining to each other that political correctness was driving them out of work.
Probably because of his experience on Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, cinematographer Dean Cundey (Jurassic Park) was assigned to shoot the live-action portions of Looney Tunes: Back in Action. Given the elaborate compositing work required to integrate the animation, it is not surprising that the film was finished on what was then still the relatively new procedure known as a digital intermediate. Warner's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray was presumably sourced from the same digital files created in 2003, which would account for its smooth but detailed surface, which has to strike the right balance between the relatively simple textures of the animated characters and the more complex surfaces of the real world. The colors are subtly shaded so that the dull tones of the corporate boardroom at both Warner and Acme transition easily to the bright, glittering neon of Las Vegas (the older Las Vegas, before most of the luxury resorts opened), the hot intensity of the Nevada desert and the bright greens of Africa. Densities and saturation look appropriate, and the only digital manipulation in evidence is whatever was done at the DI stage. In a surprising move for Warner, the 92-minute film hasn't been squeezed onto a BD-25, but has been allowed a BD-50. In a not-so-surprising move for Warner, vast amounts of space on the BD-50 have been left unused, so that the average bitrate clocks in at 25.93, which is adequate. But why does Warner Home Entertainment consistently aim for such rates even when it doesn't have to?
Back in Action's aggressive 5.1 mix, encoded in lossless DTS-HD MA, provides all the boing that one could want from an action cartoon, as Bugs, Daffy and friends run, drive, fly, crash, explode and generally do all the physically impossible things for which they are known and loved. The human actors do more than a few such stunts as well. The sound designers have used the expansive dynamic range of modern digital sound and the steering potential of discrete multi-channel systems to open out the possibilities of Looney Tune antics without betraying the spirit and sensation of the original adventures. The voice work is impressive, and it's all intelligible, except when it's not supposed to be. The score for Back in Action is the last one credited to the late Jerry Goldsmith, although parts of it had to be completed by John Debney. The score's freewheeling style is a fitting tribute to the great composer, who echoes his own Gremlins score when Daffy and DJ hop into DJ's heap of an auto for the drive to Vegas. The car is, of course, an AMC Gremlin.
The extras have been ported over from Warner's 2005 DVD release of Looney Tunes: Back in Action, with a few additional cartoons. Missing are the DVD-ROM features, which, according to information at IMDb ("Alternate Verions"), contained ten more deleted scenes.
We will never know what Looney Tunes: Back in Action could have been if Dante had been allowed a free hand, but what's here deserved much better than the back of the hand that Warner gave it at the time. Especially among the supporting players and in the margins of the frame, there's a lot to appreciate, and the Blu-ray treatment is certainly very good. While nothing can compare to the classic Looney Tunes of old, recommended.
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2017
2001
with 2 Poppin' Penguins Toys
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SD on Blu-ray
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2016
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2012
2016
2015
2000
Sing-Along Edition
2019
2007
2018
2019
2009
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2006
2011-2019
Special Edition
2017