Looney Tunes: Rabbits Run (2015)

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. So imagine my surprise that I only found out a month ago that the show got a movie! I got to checking it out instantly... 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.

When I saw the low rating this movie had received, I assumed it had something to do with the fact that it was ostensibly a spin-off of The Looney Tunes Show, which I personally really enjoy, but has garnered its share of haters for having the audacity to not be exactly like the Looney Tunes they remember from childhood. Now that I've seen Rabbits Run, I assume it has more to do with the fact that the movie is just not very good. Out of all the Looney Tunes movies I've seen, including the ones that were just glorified clip shows, this might be the lamest. Before I watched Rabbits Run, I couldn't help feeling a little let down that I would not be hearing Kristen Wiig reprising the role of Lola. However, that ended up being the least of my grievances. It turns out that Rachel Ramras is actually a perfectly suitable replacement, and after a couple of minutes, I'd almost entirely managed to forget that she sounded different at all. What I should have been more concerned about was pretty much every other aspect of this movie.Aside from maintaining the personalities of a few of the characters that were established on The Looney Tunes Show, this is not set within the same continuity as the series, which feels like a wasted opportunity right off the bat. I know that the Looney Tunes have not maintained a consistent continuity throughout the bulk of of their long career, but part of what what made The Looney Tunes Show appealing to me is that it did have its own internal canon. If you're not going to utilize that, why make this movie a spin-off of that series? Imagine if they made a movie spin-off of Friends, but then it was revealed that it would be pretending that the show's ten seasons never happened and that the actors would all be playing different versions of their characters, meeting for the first time. Maybe Joey only shows up for a quick cameo. Fans might find that a little disconcerting, not to mention disappointing. Sure, the Looney Tunes characters will probably continue to exist in one form or another from now until we're all dead, but as someone with a particular fondness for the incarnations of those characters that TLTS gave us, I can't help feeling a little melancholy that that this chapter of their history is ending on an unfortunately lackluster note. Everything about Rabbits Run is inferior to The Looney Tunes Show, including the animation. There were some sweet moments between Bugs and Lola, but beyond that, I can't say that I had a good time watching it. They basically ditched what made TLTS unique in favor of doing a rather tedious, cheap-looking, unfunny adventure movie. I doubt that abandoning the sitcom format at this late date is going to win over any haters while fans such as myself are likely to only be bummed out that what could very well be The Looney Tunes Show's swan song turned out to be such a dull mess.

Now, I wouldn't be too fond of the redesigns of the Looney Tunes characters including Lola but, it is a bit better than the show. At the beginning of the film, I thought it was gonna be rubbish because, the song they had for Lola was terrible. Especially, they destroyed the song with auto tune. However after that painful moment hearing Lolas song, I got more interested in looking at the movie. I like the fact it had a good few action scenes, it does remind you a mix of Space Jam or Looney Tunes:Back in Action. I love Kirsten Wiig but I have to tell you this, I think Rachel Ramras is a better voice actress for Lola than Wiig. The reason i said this because, Lola in Space Jam had a calm voice so Ramras was able to put that off quite well, for an actress who I never even heard of before until this! On the other hand, I think Wiig sounded too exhausting as Lola, I mean Lola is meant to be considered "crazy" but I think Wiig went too far for her character to be honest with you! Anyways I even loved how Bugs cared more about Lola than on the show. Even though, I don't think him being too openly annoyed suits him still as a character. I loved how they both agreed to become a couple, it gave me such a fuzzy feeling! Oh how it brings back memories when they were together in Space Jam not so long ago, haha. I love them as a couple as always!Even though again, I'm not happy with the redesigns, Lolas song and the fact, some of the personalities like Bugs still acts as a grumpy sod. For Ramras, the storyline and the memories of Space Jam a bit, I give this movie 5/10.

Reviewed by: Dare Devil Kid (DDK)Rating: 4/5 starsDevoted fans of the classic 1940s and 50s "Merry Melodies" and "Looney Tunes" cartoons from Warner Brothers never know what they're going to get these days when they see their favorite characters revived in new, updated versions. It's pretty hit-or-miss since some current writers and animators get what made the old characters tick, while others, bless 'em, just plain don't.The people behind the original feature-length, direct-to-video cartoon movie "Looney Tunes: Rabbit Run" get it. But to their credit, instead of simply recreating the old stuff, they've taken familiar characters such as Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Foghorn Leghorn, Elmer Fudd, Marvin the Martian, and Speedy Gonzales, among others, and cast them in a dizzying screwball comedy that's a cross between a "Bringing Up Baby" and "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World".As a world-weary New York cabbie, Bugs gets to downplay his old wise-guy persona, and serve as straight man for Lola Bunny, a flighty, valley-girlish, amateur perfume inventor who hopes to take the Paris fragrance industry by storm with her intoxicating new formula. But when the military finds out that Lola's new perfume is also an invisibility formula, they'll stop at nothing to get it. The sight of Foghorn Leghorn as an overbearing Army general ordering around his minions, including agents Elmer Fudd and Cecil Turtle is refreshingly exuberant. The secret of the formula is also discovered by Lola's former department store boss, Giovanni Jones (the opera singer in the 1948 classic "Long-Haired Hare"). He follows her and Bugs all the way to Paris along with an avaricious Yosemite Sam (smuggling himself aboard the plane squeezed into an old lady's dog carrier) and everyone else who can't wait to get their paws on the precious formula.Bugs and Lola make a great team and add their chemistry adds verve to every frame they're in, whether it be leading the bad guys in a frenetic car chase through the streets of New York, posing as stewardesses on a flight to Paris (Bugs manages to get into drag again, of course) during which they end up falling out of the plane, and finally being kidnapped by none other than Marvin the Martian and taken to his deep space headquarters where he plans something nefarious with Lola's formula.More hilarity ensues with the appearance of those eternally giddy, stereotypically-gay gophers, Mac and Tosh, in their fabulous yacht. Their song-and-dance extravaganza, "Girl, You're Fabulous", is a hoot, as is Lola's big number "Smell in My Mind". The great Daffy Duck brings his own prodigious persona into the mix in fine style as a fellow cab driver unwillingly caught up in the action. Also appearing in lesser but no less welcome capacity are Speedy Gonzalez as Lola's landlord and Pepe Le Pew as an eau-de-cologne magnate.For pure fun that's fun to look at, "Looney Tunes: Rabbit Run" is well worth getting caught up in for its 70-minute duration. It's made by people who appreciate the original Looney Tunes cartoons while easily avoiding being just a pallid facsimile of them. It's not your typical Looney Tunes plot, but if you love the old cartoons, in addition to appreciating the cockeyed appeal of screwball comedies, you should find yourself having a rollicking good time with this breezy, lightning-paced, lighthearted adventure as much as your kids. (Or if you're like me; somebody else's kids.)