Review: The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie (2024)

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It’s ironic that in an era where immature media reigns supreme, the Looney Tunes have been largely absent. You’d think that if most entertainment is pitched at kids (or childish adults), then the absolute best of cartoons would have a place in the current culture. Sadly, not so much. However, the brand is not entirely dormant, as shown in the TV series Looney Tunes Cartoons and the recent The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie. Now, this movie doesn’t feature the full gang, just Daffy Duck and Porky Pig, but it has its moments in a landscape where the Looney Tunes have largely disappeared. If you need a taste of Looney Tunes slapstick before an (hopefully) eventual resurgence of the property, this movie will do you right.

The title, riffing on The Day the Earth Stood Still, gives away the film’s interests: it’s a science-fiction movie influenced by classics from the 1950s. Daffy and Porky are brothers living in the farmhouse bequeathed to them by their adoptive father, Farmer Jim. When the home fails an inspection due to a massive hole in the roof, they investigate the goo left in the hole and uncover a conspiracy regarding aliens and chewing gum. The scenario allows director Pete Browngardt and his massive team of writers (never a great sign when a film is credited with 11 writers) to have fun with goofy scenarios involving UFOs, mind control, and copious explosions (this is Looney Tunes, after all).

The film is at its best when it simply unleashes the goofiness of Daffy Duck and Porky Pig. Daffy might not be quite as iconic as Bugs Bunny, but he’s arguably funnier: more unhinged, more aggrieved, more relatable. He’s truly “daffy” and voice actor Eric Bauza (who voices both Daffy and Porky) delights in Daffy’s hysteria as he uncovers the conspiracy.

The film also does occasionally capture the absurd brilliance of classic Looney Tunes shorts. There’s a sequence where Daffy and Porky work at the chewing gum factory, both operating one half of the machine that packages gum in a mind numbing, monotonous manner. But rather than the characters growing disillusioned with the repetition, they enjoy the straightforward, repetitive approach, characterized by their constantly chipper recitation of the instructions: “Push the button and pull the crank.”

The sequence gets even better as it transitions into a montage of Daffy and Porky within the gears and machines of the factory, like Charlie Chaplin in Modern Times, before the animation style shifts to mid-century industrialist animation (think Works Progress Administration art posters or Soviet propaganda). It culminates in a Busby Berkeley-style chorus line of visuals, all set to Raymond Scott’s “Powerhouse,” the iconic factory music from classic Looney Tunes films. It’s delightful.

Too bad nothing else in The Day the Earth Blew Up ever matches this dizzying high of animation and music. The film falls into the trap of all feature-length Looney Tunes films (and cartoon features in general) in feeling the need to add emotional stakes and character arcs. And so we get the sentimental stuff about Farmer Jim (played best when it’s tongue in cheek) and worst, Petunia Pig, a brilliant pig scientist at the gum factory that Porky falls head over hooves for.

Movies of this sort don’t have a great track record of creating original female leads. For every Jessica Rabbit from Who Framed Roger Rabbit, there are a dozen Petunia types, who are overwritten to always be the smartest character on screen, morally correct in every scenario, and, sadly, free of most laughs. It’s like featuring Lisa Simpson if she weren’t the butt of the joke. It seems pretty clear that the team of 11 male writers failed to crack the character, who is essential to the plot, but written without much imagination or sense of levity.

As we watch Daffy, Porky, and Petunia try to stop the conspiracy, the film works on autopilot narratively. Luckily, the pro-forma plot is punctuated by funny little moments of chaos here and loving references to classic sci-fi films there. Overall, The Day the Earth Blew Up is perfectly serviceable as a feature length film. It’s just too bad that it only fleetingly captures the brilliance of Looney Tunes shorts. Though to be fair, this is something Looney Tunes has struggled with for as long as it’s been releasing feature films, all the way back to 1996’s Space Jam (a movie that is similarly imaginative and serviceable in turns). Maybe they’ll crack it one day or perhaps it’s intrinsic to any feature films of cartoon characters who are perfect for shorts. At least for now, we can all enjoy the brilliance of “Powerhouse” unleashed on the big screen.

6 out of 10

The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie (2024, USA)

Directed by Pete Browngardt; written by Darrick Bachman, Pete Browngardt, Kevin Costello, Andrew Dickman, David Gemmill, Alex Kirwan, Ryan Kramer, Jason Reicher, Michael Ruocco, Johnny Ryan, Eddie Trigueros; starring Eric Bauza, Candi Milo, Peter MacNicol.

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