Looney Tunes: Back in Action

Premiere Glenn Kenny

It's flat-out comedy all the way, head-spinningly clever (you'll be talking about a sequence set in the Louvre for weeks) and always engaging. For my money, it's the comedy of the year.

Baltimore Sun Chris Kaltenbach

Replete with so many wisecracks, puns, double entendres and visual jokes that you almost need a flow chart to keep up with them all. But try; the effort is definitely worthwhile, and the results are hilarious.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

The film is an across-the-board charmer that should appeal to children as well as their parents, aficionados of animation and old-movie buffs who will be challenged to sort out the blur of seemingly hundreds of classic film references.

LA Weekly Scott Foundas

The movie looks like it cost a fortune, with Dean Cundey's glistening widescreen compositions and Bill Brzeski's towering, storybook sets providing the backdrop for seamless visual effects. What's more, it's equally rich in ideas.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

Spirited, quintessential, and often hilarious.

Washington Post Stephen Hunter

Delightful, delicious and destructive.

The Hollywood Reporter Luke Sader

It will never be confused with the groundbreaking "Who Framed Roger Rabbit," but when it comes to a zippy live-action-meets-animation kid flick with plenty of grown-up gags, Looney Tunes: Back in Action does not disappoint.

Slate David Edelstein

A nutty, zany, wacky, unruly, spastically hilarious hodgepodge that hits at least twice as often as it misses—which is a big deal, since there are more gags per square foot of celluloid than in any film since Joe Dante's "Gremlins 2: The New Batch" (1990).

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

Fraser, Martin, and the rest of the flesh-and-blood characters look like they’re having a ball, which translates instantly to the audience as well.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

Not as inspired as "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" but in the same spirit. It's goofy fun. Or maybe we should make that daffy fun.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

So jam-packed with self-referential humor, pop culture cameos, and nods to some of the greatest moments in animation, that it's almost impossible not to like it.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

Fraser and Elfman are goofily endearing even if they seem more sincere acting opposite the rabbit and the duck than they do each other.

Boston Globe Ty Burr

The joy is in the details, and they are unrelentingly comic.

Los Angeles Times Manohla Dargis

Looney Tunes doesn't have much on its addled mind other than pure entertainment, and on this level it succeeds quite nicely.

Village Voice Ben Kenigsberg

Dante's masterstroke is to make the movie as visually and narratively unhinged as its source material.

Film Threat David Grove

Is Looney Tunes: Back in Action a great achievement in animation? No, but I think that's the point of the film -- that the old cartoon characters and drawings are more human than the visual miracles produced by Disney and Pixar.

New York Post Megan Lehmann

The meta jokes come thick and fast - some clunk, but there's no time to mourn - and the references are far from limited to the Warner Bros. world (at one point, Bugs exclaims, "Whaddya know - I found Nemo!").

USA Today Mike Clark

Even when the movie works, it's so much like having Daffy Duck assault your face that you want to buy a box set of elevator music for the calming drive home.

The New York Times Stephen Holden

If the movie has loads of nerve, its ambitious fusion of cartoons and live-action comedy is only fitfully amusing.

Empire Colin Kennedy

Best of all, an astonishing sequence in which Bugs, Daffy and Porky Pig leap from painting to painting in a breathless chase through the Louvre sufficiently demonstrates just how much life modern animation techniques can breathe into these timeless characters.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Nathan Rabin

With the exception of its bland leads, Back In Action's frenetic plot serves as its biggest weakness, but it at least provides the framework for two Tashlin-worthy setpieces.

TV Guide Angel Cohn

Fraser's goofiness matches that of the animated characters and he cheerfully pokes fun at his celebrity persona, while Elfman is oddly appealing as a strong woman who must seek help from a wascally wabbit.

San Francisco Chronicle Carla Meyer

Fraser and Bugs Bunny are the highlights of this pleasant but unoriginal film.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

Has its funny moments, but all too often it's a corny, lackluster film in which humans pretend (not always convincingly) to interact with cartoons.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

I've laughed harder during a single "Road Runner" cartoon than I did throughout Back in Action.

Salon.com Charles Taylor

There's a reason why Looney Tunes cartoons were six minutes long. Stretched out over an hour and a half, they're wearying.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

The film is preoccupied with whiz-bang adventure rather than storytelling. There's also too much cartoon violence for young kids.

Miami Herald Christine Dolan

Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck might want to talk to their agents about looking for better material.

Variety Brian Lowry

A not-inventive-enough romp that belches out gags at a rapid-fire clip but connects so sporadically as to leave the audience enervated but only sparingly entertained.

Dallas Observer Melissa Levine

A mind-numbing, achingly post-modern advertisement for itself, which attempts to distract us from its highly merchandised nature by constantly referring to it. In other words, it's morally corrupt, but your kids will love it.

Chicago Tribune Mark Caro

You never lose awareness that Fraser and, particularly, Elfman are acting alongside creatures they can't actually see, and you constantly think you should be having more fun than you are. In the end, you want to ask the filmmakers: Is that all, folks?

Entertainment Weekly Scott Brown

There are flashes of wit -- Speedy Gonzales muttering about political correctness and an arty chase through the Louvre. But there is also random flatulence, a.k.a. the stink of desperation.