Just not very good

Rating: 6/10 (25 October 2007)

I am not a fan of basketball, Michael Jordan or the Looney Tunes. Why, then, do I own a store-bought VHS copy of this film, you ask? Darned if I know. Maybe it was a present. Maybe it was from a time where my taste was less discriminating... but hey, even kids must have some limit, some point at which they stare in disbelief at the crap thrown at them. The film opens to a scene which has a soundtrack song the choice of which is so painfully obvious, that actually choosing it is almost ridiculous, goes on with such highlights as a number of the Looneys all spitting in unison, and ends in a major showdown, with occasional awful acting by basketball players, and one rather underdeveloped, faint attempt at an emotion-evoking subplot along the way. The strange thing is that, save for said showdown, there's really hardly any basket played in the film... one would think that to be one of the main attractions. Their lead is one of the good players of the sport, and the plot can't be summed up or described without mentioning said free-time activity. Scenes that seem like they'd lead to at least *some* basketball... just exactly don't. Dan Castellaneta shows up in a cameo, doing nothing. The plot is OK. The pacing isn't too bad. The humor isn't all good, but it has its moments. The large cast of characters, some of which are animated, allows fairly little time for almost all of them, but I suppose people aren't used to spending too much time with the Tunes, so that may not be a bad thing. Oddly enough, they really hardly do any of their trademark gags. The film doesn't overstay its welcome, coming in at not much under an hour and a half. This is the introduction of Lola Bunny, who, I gather from the Trivia entry regarding this, stayed with the franchise. Bugs is this time, and some from this point on, performed by Billy West, also known from Futurama. If you listen carefully, you can tell the "Fry" in some of Bunny's lines. The direction is done by Joe Pytka, who, before this, had done a few Michael Jackson videos and a Richard Dreyfuss comedy. The blend of animation and live action isn't always smooth. The effects look dated today, in particular the CGI, but the general animation isn't bad. The film does have some reasonable moments... the initial arrival of the aliens to the land of cartoons, for example. The music is good enough. I guess it's a decent enough film for those who are fans of the sport and/or the cartoons. Just strange how much there is to be found in the film that features neither. I recommend this to anyone who finds themselves in either or both of the aforementioned groups, as well as anyone still interested after reading this review. 6/10