A Blister on Bugs' Backside

Rating: Null/10 (26 November 2000)

This movie undoes in 90 minutes what the masters Avery and Jones (and to a lesser extent Freling and McKimpson) did in 20 years and was maintained for 30 more.
The plot is inane: If Bugs and co. can't defeat the alien "Monstars" in basketball game, they will be enslaved forever. However, with some intelligent writing they could pull it off, but for some reason Bugs has become a complete wimp and enlists old pal Michael Jordan (they had several mutual commercials) to help. Come on! Bugs has defeated threats ten times more menacing all on his own!
The characters have seriously degraded. The filmmakers pride themselves on "modernizing" the characters. This means that Bugs makes a complete moron out of himself in front of newcomer "Lola Bunny", who is the cardboard cutout "independent female" and bears absolutely no connection to any element of the Looney Tunes. We are also supposed to laugh at Bugs repeatedly getting pounded into submission. Who is this impostor? He's such a wimp, he can't even defend himself against an ordinary pit bull!
And Daffy! After all of the blood, sweat and tears Chuck Jones put into making him one the greatest characters of all time, they reduce him to the spluttering lunatic we thought we'd never see again. His body proportions have been mutated to ridiculous, and his voice is just horrible. Whatever happened to Joe Alaskey?
It gets worse. Tweety has lost his innocence, Sylvester is a dolt, Taz is a prop, the Roadrunner and Wile E. Coyote keep up their usual rivalry but have absolutely nothing to do, nobody seems to know what to do with Porky, who seems lost in the movie's jarring, unmerciful pace, and some of the best players for the team (Gossamer, Crusher) are never used. The Nerdlucks/Monstars start out as cuddly, colour-coded Disney sweeties and become uninteresting, uninspired props. Way to go, guys.
The only satisfying character is Marvin the Martian, who referees the game. Whoever directed his short sequences had the right idea about what this movie could have been. Instead, we get jokes about urination, saliva and nudity, and some jarring incidences like Daffy muttering "we're gettin' thcrewed." Since when do they talk like that?
The writers should know that THE LOONEY TUNES DO NOT NEED TO BE MODERNIZED. They have been carefully crafted to always be entertaining well into the new millennium and beyond. Injecting Ren and Stimpy-brand humour and secular music is not becoming at all. Calling in Chuck Jones as a creative consultant would help immensely. However, the only indication that the producer know that he's alive is a sign advertising "CJ's Toys". Call me old-fashioned, but I think that would make a better movie than "Space Jam".