The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie

There's a thousand ways a movie can be ruined. Acting, score, cinematography, script, dialogue, casting, costumes, pacing, editing ... the list is endless. But that list is exponentially longer when the movie is using a known IP for a new project. Known characters and established lore provide an endless minefield of blunders just waiting to be triggered. The Fantastic Beasts spinoffs from Harry Potter were never as enthusiastically embraced as its origin series. The recent Sweet Revenge short used Jason Voorhees to hock alcohol with a product that looked like a student film and turned the lore on its head for no good reason. The Day The Earth Blew Up came with an insane amount of hurdles to clear. How does one take two animated characters that have been around for almost a century and do ANYTHING with them without angering some portion of the fanbase? Characterization, voices, setting, animation, all of it is an uphill battle. For people like me who grew up watching the old WB shorts, those characters are firmly entrenched in my pop culture DNA, and in a very specific way. Daffy Duck is a volatile narcissist with self-esteem issues. Porky Pig is a genial everyman. Generations of people hold these characters near and dear to their hearts. How does one thread that needle? The answer is to craft a movie that shows just enough knowledge and reverence to the classic shorts without pandering or lapsing into fan service, while still doing enough new things so it doesn't feel like more of the same, and Earth does that surprisingly well. In this, Daffy and Porky are orphans raised by a farmer, and in adulthood, after the farmer has left, and they've inherited the house, get sucked into a story of extraterrestrial invasion, romance, certain doom, and bubble gum. Earth draws influences from countless other sources -- the buddy comedy is the centerpiece, and the plot takes elements from Invasion Of The Body Snatchers and The Thing -- and throws them all in a pot together with Daffy and Porky, albeit new versions of them. Daffy's rougher edges have been sanded down; he's still impulsive and doesn't think things through, but it's more light-hearted and silly than temperamental. Porky is the more logical of the two, but he's also burdened with having to be something of an older brother/keeper to Daffy and, secretly, kind of resenting him. There's just enough of the characters we know in there, but more fleshed out than a 7-minute short would ever allow for. Earth drops these two into a situation where they have to save the world; Daffy is ready to go in guns-blazing without a plan, and Porky is more methodical but also more prone to show fear. Again, there's reverence to the old style of the characters, but there are more layers now. Earth's animation is beautiful, crisp and smooth and a sight to behold. There's even two sequences where some different animation styles are used, and they're inventive and eye-catching. I'm not entirely thrilled with the use of CGI animation -- I would've preferred entirely hand-drawn, but I know that just isn't happening these days. Still, the animation is energetic and matches the pace of the movie, which never once has a lull. And while I can't say it's laugh-out-loud hilarious, it should slap a smile on your face and keep it there for 90 minutes at the very least. Even when the plot gets overly convoluted for a family movie -- there's a twist that, while funny, makes no damned sense whatsoever within the presentation of the movie -- it's still an easy movie to sit and enjoy and walk from having your spirits lifted. I won't say there's adult humor layered in, but the references to classic alien invasion and horror movies are definitely something for adults to pick up on, and the humor never feels dumbed down. Earth won't knock your socks off with innovation, and it won't pull at your heartstrings like the best Pixar movies, but it isn't trying to do either of these. It's a Looney Tunes movie. It's all about zany antics and wacky humor, and it finds a way to take characters that had only ever really been featured in 7-minute shorts and gives them a much larger area to play in. Is it weird that they went with Porky and Daffy over, you know, Bugs? A little, although within the context of the plot, it makes more sense. The voices aren't quite right, but that's just gonna be how it is when those classic voice actors are long gone from this world; they get as close as they can, and it's fine. Earth isn't trying to be the most amazing movie you'll see all year. It's just trying to be fun, and it succeeds in earnest.