Director: Peter Browngardt
Actors: Eric Bauza, Candi Milo, Peter MacNicol, Fred Tatasciore
Genre: Comedy / Sci-Fi
Rating: PG
‘The Day the Earth Blew Up’ is apparently the first fully-animated
Looney Tunes theatrically-released film ever (i.e. no live action Michael Jordan
or Brendan Fraser here), which is hard to believe seeing as Looney Tunes have
been around for 95 years! This is a kids film, but very much aimed at adults
who grew up watching Looney Tunes too. We follow Porky Pig (Bauza) and Daffy
Duck (also Bauza) as they try to get jobs, then try to stop a zombie outbreak,
then try to stop an asteroid – yep!
The film mashes together a lot of inspirations – ‘Invasion
of the Body Snatchers’, ‘Dawn of the Dead’, ‘Armageddon’ – as it effectively
has 3 distinct acts to make it to the 90min runtime, a lot different to 6min
shorts! The montage of baby Daffy & baby Porky being adopted by Farmer Jim
(Tatasciore) is funny and heart-warming and grounds the film – “sticking together”
becoming a theme, figuratively and literally. The zombies are kid-friendly,
being turned by chewing gum and say “chew”, not “brains”. Petunia (Milo) comes
in to help them with the gum issue. A preposterous premise, even more so when
we find out the purpose behind it!
The animation is great – very nice to see traditional 2D
animation – the jokes are sometimes juvenile and faux extreme violence, as is
standard for Looney Tunes, with the exaggerated situations, emotions and explosions
all part of the charm. We took ages 3, 5, 7 and 9, so it wasn’t too scary, even
though the advisory is: “mild crude humour, science fiction themes and animated
violence” – fair. Daffy & Porky work well together, but I was hoping for a
Marvin the Martian and Bugs Bunny cameo. Hopefully for the next one! Lots of
laughs, with the best joke being Daffy’s “do you have any idea how hard it is
for male ducks to lay eggs?”
Overall: Fun, absurd, alien Daffy & Porky adventure
Gav's Rating: 3.5 stars
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