Review of Looney Tunes: Rabbits Run by adroit_avimimus

Mon, 06 Sep 2021 08:28:32 -0700

I LOVE The Looney Tunes show, and have rewatched it several times - the episodes manage to make me laugh every time with their often absurd but well timed humor and quirky memorable characters. I got to checking it out as soon as I could... and was severely disappointed. Don't take it the wrong way - the movie is by no means bad. It is a decent enough flick and certainly has a much more cohesive plot than most other Looney Tunes movies. A big plus is that unlike Back in Action or Space Jam, they finally understood that Looney Tunes needs no live action characters and stand on its own. The problem is, that despite the identical designs and many voice actors returning... this movie does not take place in the same continuity as the Looney Tunes Show. In fact, many characters have totally different roles than on the show, have widely different personalities, or in some cases, are totally absent altogether. In a way, it all reminds me of another big disappointment - Superman: Brainiac Attacks, which used the animation design of Superman TAS but without all the heart or good writing of the original. The plot is, in short, that Lola - who works as a perfume salesperson for Giovanni Jones - tries to discover the perfect perfume. She unknowingly uses a super rare flower for this, given to her by her landlord, Speedy Gonzales - but the flower has properties to turn everything invisible, hence both the government agencies, led by general Foghorn Leghorn with FBI agent Elmer Fudd, and two thugs with Cecil Turtle, want to take the perfume. Lola escapes in the taxi of cab driver Bugs Bunny, while being chased by all parties, including bounty hunter Yosemite Sam and Giovanni as well. It all turns into an international spy movie chase from here with cameos from Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, the Gophers, Pepe le Pew, and culminating on a showdown on Mars with the real villain, Martin the Martian. What can I say, the movie just squanders the opportunities for good jokes. Lola isn't the scatterbrained and super random lady we know and love from the show, she is too much aware of what is going on around her to be like that. Bugs is a bit satirical but again, not enough to be funny. The biggest problem is that the movie focuses on the two of them, and their budding romance, instead of the jokes, and many characters remain 'blink and you will miss them' appearances. The worst case is easily Daffy, who was the cornerstone of the show - here, his appearance is little more than an extended cameo, he soon drops out of the picture. Porky, Speedy, Yosemite and Foghorn and Cecil aren't any better off, even in the short scenes they have, as their personalities are totally unlike on the show. Notably absent are many characters as well, most importantly Tina Russo, Daffy's girlfriend from the show, as well as Granny, Sylvester and Tweety, Witch Hazel, Gossamer and Taz. In conclusion, if you are unfamiliar with the show, you will find it an average quality Looney Tunes movie with a few jokes, nothing to write home about. If you liked the show though, you'll be baffled why someone at WB made the decision to create a movie that looks exactly like it, but feel totally different from it. I cannot recommend it, really.