'The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie' Delights Critics

     On February 28, 2025, Ketchup Entertainment releases 'The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie', which is currently holding at 100% on Rotten Tomatoes at the time of this writing. In the film, "Porky Pig and Daffy Duck, one of the greatest comedic duos in history, are making their hilarious return to the big screen in the sci-fi comedy adventure, THE DAY THE EARTH BLEW UP: A LOONEY TUNES MOVIE. This is the first-ever fully animated Looney Tunes feature-length movie created for a cinema audience. Porky and Daffy are our unlikely heroes and Earth's only hope when facing the threat of alien invasion. In this buddy-comedy of epic proportions, they race to save the world, delivering all the laugh-out-loud gags and vibrant visuals that have made the Looney Tunes so iconic, but on a scope and scale yet to be experienced. It's going to be out of this world!" The ensemble cast includes Eric Bauza, Candi Milo, Fred Tatasciore, and Peter MacNicol. Read the full review round-up below.

    Douglas Davidson of Elements of Madness says, "The Day the Earth Blew Up is by no means perfect. Daffy is, perhaps, just a little *too* daffy for the story’s own good, creating problems frequently enough to make one ponder if they should just get on with moving to the next scene. There’s also a comment made about Porky’s stutter which feels slightly offensive within the negative connotation the dialogue creates. Looney Tunes aren’t exactly saints with the characters frequently pushing the bounds of what is and is not transgressive (see: Bugs Bunny, queer icon), but they do tend to be inoffensive at their core. To that end, the first is mere annoyance and respective to personal taste while the second can be explained (though not excused) within the context of the scene and what Daffy is trying to articulate. This version of Daffy is so well-intentioned that his stupidity and resulting damage is not charming exactly, but forgivable. If there’s a favorite moment for this reviewer, it’s one that comes very late and breaks the fourth wall in a manner that harkens to another atomic age homage, Return of the Killer Tomatoes (1988), as Daffy acknowledges that they’re in a movie. It’s a choice that works as a gag in the moment, but also throws a great deal of complaints about inconsistency or preference for the depiction of Porky and Daffy out the window — this isn’t *them*, they’re playing characters just like Duck Dodgers and Space Cadet — therefore allowing a bit more leeway in how the writers of this film play the characters."

   Peter Debruge of Variety notes, "Daffy (whose greatest desire is to smash things with his wooden mallet) wears on the nerves after a while, but the entire project -- including a handful of fun fourth-wall-shattering asides -- is crafted with love and a genuine respect for the franchise."

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    Rafael Motamayor of IGN Movies praises the film, stating, "Despite the '50s sci-fi plot, it all feels quite modern. The (gorgeous) animation is slick and fluid, and the pacing relentless – the jokes-per-minute ratio is astounding. The influence of 21st century cartoons like The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack and Chowder is apparent; there’s a randomness to the humor that echoes absurdities like the running Nosferatu gag on SpongeBob SquarePants. At the very least, The Day the Earth Blew Up proves that these characters are more than capable of carrying their own movie (and without Bugs Bunny!) and make it a laugh-out-loud riot. Hopefully, the lack of a "That's all Folks!" tag at the end means this is not the last we’ll see of the Looney Tunes on the big screen." Continuing, "The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie has enough gags per minute to leave audiences short of breath with laughter, but also a big heart that shows why these characters are so beloved even after nearly 90 years. With crisp animation, some truly hilarious and bizarre gags, and a  plot that hearkens back to 1950s sci-fi, this is the Looney Tunes movie fans have been waiting for."

'Goodrich' Reviews: "It's a refreshing, down-to-earth film for Keaton"

         On October 18, 2024, Ketchup Entertainment released 'Goodrich', which has earned a mixed reception from critics, currently holding at 68% on Rotten Tomatoes. In the film, "Andy Goodrich's (Michael Keaton) life is upended when his wife and mother of their nine-year-old twins enters a 90-day rehab program, leaving him on his own with their young kids. Thrust into the world of modern parenthood, Goodrich leans on his daughter from his first marriage, Grace (Mila Kunis), as he ultimately evolves into the father Grace never had." But what did the critics say?

       Roger Moore of Movie Nation says, "There’s no heavy lifting in “Goodrich,” the Michael Keaton/Mila Kunis dramedy about a workaholic second-time-around dad forced to reconnect with his kids, including the one old enough to be pregnant. The jokes about trying, after 60, to learn to be a dad, are easy to reach to the point of cute and mostly low-hanging fruit. The formula in play is another “I did my best” parent facing a sometimes comic, sometimes sad reckoning. At its most somber, it reaches for “Kramer vs. Kramer.” In lighter moments, one can wonder if all involved could have just turned this into a sequel to one of Keaton’s earliest hits, “Mister Mom.” The edgiest thing about it is its rating, “R,” for profanity. It would have reached a wider audience as a PG-13. But this it’s well-acted and it plays. More or less. Writer-director Hallie Meyers-Shyer was an actress before getting that first writing-directing (Reese Witherspoon’s “Home Again”), but is still most famously the daughter of writer-director couple Nancy Meyers and Charles Shyer, who remade “The Parent Trap” and “Father of the Bride” before divorcing. She doesn’t embarrass herself and give Hollywood “nepo babies” a bad name here any more than she makes her name with this slight, derivative star vehicle."

        Shawn Van Horn of Collider notes, "Written and directed by Hallie Meyers-Shyer, and co-starring Mila Kunis, Goodrich doesn't deal with superheroes or the supernatural. It's a refreshing, down-to-earth film for Keaton, with him playing an aging man who is going through a coming-of-age story in the last act of his life. It's a simple, cozy dramedy, one you've watched before with beats you can see coming a mile away, and while it's not going to go down as one of Keaton's best, him giving his best takes it from being another paint-by-numbers film to something sweet and worth seeing if you want to see a feel-good story to counter the likes of Joker: Folie à Deux and Terrifer 3 at the cinemas."

       Alexander Harrison of Screen Rant writes, "Keaton's performance is the heart of this success. He somehow conveys his character's self-examination as a layer underneath each scene, to the extent that in each interaction outside a work setting, Andy appears to be discovering how to behave. It's like he was dropped into this movie right when we were, snapped out of whatever illusion kept him running for so long and having to learn what's really been going on with the people around him for the first time."

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'Hellboy: The Crooked Man' Reviews: Film "proves to be a satisfying comic book adaptation in a year marked by far more expensive misfires like Madame Web and Joker: Folie à Deux"

         On October 8, 2024, Ketchup Entertainment released 'Hellboy: The Crooked Man', which has received predominantly negative reviews, currently holding at 40% on Rotten Tomatoes. In the film, "Hellboy and a rookie BPRD agent find themselves stranded in 1950s rural Appalachia. They soon discover a community of witches led by a local devil who has a connection to Hellboy's past." The ensemble cast includes Jefferson White, Jack Kesy, Adeline Ruddolph, and Leah McNamara. But what did the critics say?

        Aidan Kelley of Collider says, "Hellboy: The Crooked Man is unfortunately a bit of a mixed bag. For every promising pro, there is also a contentious con, and some promising ideas are executed well while some less stellar concepts also sneak in." Adding, "Brian Taylor previously promised that this would be a very different Hellboy movie compared to what came before, and he delivered on that promise with The Crooked Man. Tonally, this does feel like a huge and honestly welcome departure from the on-the-nose action movies that preceded it, feeling much closer to something like Constantine rather than the prior Hellboy films. There's still some levity and humor to keep a comforting, loose connection to the cinematic origins of the character, but it's reined in and represented uniquely. Sadly, the horror vibe isn't always done justice, primarily through some very cheap jumpscares, including some very out-of-place ones toward the end."

       Anthony Morris of It's Better in the Dark notes, "There are rough edges here that feel more the result of an uneven script and low budget than firm intentions. But if this film manages to chart a new direction for Hellboy - smaller in scope but bigger in strangeness - that wouldn't be such a bad thing." Continuing, "While Hellboy himself remains the same character here, this is a pretty big pivot to small scale horror for the big screen version, in ways that those looking for pulp action might find off-putting. There's no evil end-of-the-world cult or giant monsters or Nazi hold-outs to punch here: ok, there are a few zombies at one point. But this is much more about a creeping sense of dread, of people stumbling into a place that's gone rotten with bad magic. A lot of the small moments are memorably creepy. There's a witch who leaves her skin behind to roam the woods as a raccoon; another witch rides a horse that turns out to be someone's enslaved father. The main evil haunting the mountain is called The Crooked Man, a walking hanged corpse who sells souls to the Devil for a cent apiece in an attempt to rebuild his long gone fortune."

       Jesse Schedeen of IGN Movies writes, "Hellboy: The Crooked Man never really reaches the heights of the two Guillermo Del Toro-directed films that launched Hellboy’s cinematic career, nor is it as frustratingly lousy as the 2019 reboot. This third attempt at a live-action Hellboy franchise falls comfortably in the middle. It does a solid job of adapting the seminal source material while adding a few necessary embellishments. And while the low-budget trappings often work against the film’s horror elements, The Crooked Man nonetheless proves to be a satisfying comic book adaptation in a year marked by far more expensive misfires like Madame Web and Joker: Folie à Deux."

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