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

I grew up watching Warner Bros.’ Looney Tunes characters in various guises, which meant I was happy to see that they were returning to the big screen. It’s a shame then that no matter how much I wanted to like The Day the Earth Blew Up, in the end I found myself disappointed. It’s hard to believe it took 11 writers (and 4 story consultants) to come up with something so aggressively mediocre, but here we are.

The movie begins by reintroducing us to Porky Pig and Daffy Duck (Eric Bauza doing a perfect job voicing both) and explaining how they came to be living together in a run-down house. These moments rank among the movie’s best, giving the audience hope that they are in for a decent time, unfortunately things go gradually downhill from here.

A scientist discovers a meteor heading towards Earth, accompanied by a speedier, anomalous object. When that object crashes through Porky and Daffy’s roof and lands near the Goodie Gum factory, he goes off in search of it only to become zombified by the strange, glowing, green goo inside. When Porky and Daffy’s house fails its annual inspection due to the new hole, they are given 10 days to make repairs. Needing to raise the money to make the fix, the duo take jobs at Goodie Gum, where Porky’s new romantic interest Petunia Pig (Candi Milo) works as a flavor scientist. Daffy notices the zombie scientist sneaking the green goo into the company’s much-hyped new product and tries to warn everyone but struggles to get anyone to listen. All the while, in a spaceship hovering above Earth, The Invader (Peter MacNicol) watches as his plan to take over the minds of all of humanity begins to take shape.

The plot may actually be a little too complex for this kind of movie, as too much time feels given over to advancing and explaining it at the expense of jokes. There are some decent gags here, including some that are definitely targeted at adults, but they feel few and far between, especially as the film moves along. At times, it seems like director Pete Browngardt is more interested in paying homage to Ren & Stimpy than classic Looney Tunes shorts, a choice that only occasionally works.

This isn’t all bad. The voice acting is uniformly excellent, the animation looks fantastic, and Joshua Moshier’s score is perfect for the material. Despite some risqué humor and a surprisingly frightening monster encounter, this is clearly targeted at kids. They may like it more than their parents do, but there is a risk that they might wind up as bored as I was feeling by the end. It is genuinely nice seeing Warner Bros. do something with these characters, I just wish it had been a bit better. As it stands, The Day the Earth Blew Up feels like it would have worked better as a short. 91 minutes may not be many by modern cinematic standards, but by the end I was feeling each and every one of them. ★★