An explosion of fun despite WB's efforts to memory-hole it
It's a small miracle that The Day the Earth Blew Up survived Warner Bros. Discovery's ongoing self-destruction in the pursuit of quick profit. A buddy comedy in the classic stooge/straight man format, this movie reignites hope for the continued existence of the Looney Tunes in an increasingly hostile corporate ecosystem. It's a cliché to read every movie as a statement on its own production, but the fact that the plot of this one involves a fearless creative fighting a company's stagnant recycling of the same old flavors under new packaging deserves, in the context of David Zaslav's disastrous tenure at the head of the studio, at least a moment of admiration.
Another of the creative choices that make this movie work so well is that it resists the easy temptation to use the entire Looney Tunes cast. The Roadrunner and Bugs Bunny are arguably more famous, but their presence would have muddled the narrative focus. The versions of Porky and Daffy used here, as adoptive brothers learning to lean on each other's distinctive strengths, is the emotional throughline that sustains the plot from beginning to end, with Porky fulfilling the role of the responsible and reasonable half of the duo and Daffy in the role of, as the kids say these days, a total chaos goblin. These two had appeared together in numerous classic WB shorts, most notably the science fiction parody Duck Dodgers, with the noteworthy reversal that Daffy was the one in charge while Porky was his insecure sidekick. This time, the dynamic between them hinges on the mission to keep their childhood home from being demolished by the city government, a pursuit that gets complicated by Daffy's newfound obsession with alien conspiracy theories and Porky's newfound obsession with the cute and brilliant Petunia, a scientist in search of the perfect bubblegum flavor (and who will taste literally any substance, edible or not, which I'm sure is a subtle joke about the fact that pigs are omnivorous).
Also commendable is the choice to stick to a 2D look that both honors the history of the characters and takes advantage of their expressive flexibility in ways that 3D attempts have failed to. Despite the massive progress made by digital video technology since the days of hand-drawn animation, the fact remains that cartoon faces and bodies can stretch and flatten much more effectively when the eye isn't distracted by the quasi-realism of a 3D shape.
The Day the Earth Blew Up makes extensive use of cartoonish exaggeration to ease the joining of the disparate tones it needs to juggle: it's a delightfully demented comedy full of slapstick zaniness, but also a creepy alien invasion thriller with disturbing body horror, but also a heartfelt personal drama about learning to manage the frictions of a chosen family. That's a huge load of complex emotional content to express via flat images, and the movie excels at the task by drawing from the decades of cinematic artistry that constitute the legacy of WB animation. For a silly story about talking animals who fight a chewing gum invasion with the power of rotten eggs, it can boast some beautiful achievements on the technical side of the moviemaking process.
Despite being produced with the tools and practical advantages of digital animation, the look of the movie maintains the tactile solidity of hand-painted backgrounds. The degree of care on the part of the team of artists is noticeable in both outdoor daylight scenes and indoor dimly lit ones. The deliberate way some shots appeal to the evocative effect of shadows and contours brings to mind better days in WB history, such as the early seasons of Batman: The Animated Series. Whether a plot beat needs to be funny or spooky or sentimental, each decision in the visual style serves to bolster the script's intention.
Not that the writing needed any help. The Day the Earth Blew Up is composed of a cavalcade of great joke after great joke after great joke. The director knows how to sustain an energetic pace without becoming overwhelming or confusing. Even when the screen gets filled with flamethrowers and giant maces and neon-green goo and a small army of wind-up dentures and unadvisable chemical experiments and an infestation of termites and prehensile bubblegum (yes, seriously), following the action feel effortless. It's really tricky to animate nonstop frantic movement while ensuring that the viewer doesn't lose the thread of the action. That's where I can bounce off a production like Star Trek: Lower Decks, and where The Day the Earth Blew Up succeeds while making it look easy.
As a bonus treat, it is thanks to the success of The Day the Earth Blew Up that Coyote vs. Acme has been rescued from oblivion, which in some way turns the act of watching it into a message to Zaslav about how wrong he is to disrespect the Looney Tunes and how necessary these characters still are.
(Also, Daffy is apparently a trans boy, which is not only fully in line with the Looney Tunes' venerable tradition of pushing the boundaries of gender expression, but is also a welcome counterweight to WB's horrendously ill-advised plans concerning a certain wizard school.)
Nerd Coefficient: 8/10.
POSTED BY: Arturo Serrano, multiclass Trekkie/Whovian/Moonie/Miraculer, accumulating experience points for still more obsessions.
