‘Coyote vs. Acme’ Review: Proves It Deserves To Be Seen
Virtually everyone knows of the tumultuous hurdles Coyote vs. Acme has jumped across to get to this point. A timeline of being a straight-to-HBO Max release, to a tax write-off to save money by Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav, to possibly being saved through purchase by another studio thanks to online outcry, to being in limbo again. Then the film finally found a home with small distributor Ketchup Entertainment. It’s safe to say it’s been one painful ride to finally get to this point.
But Coyote vs. Acme’s more-than-bumpy road to theatrical release has aided in the movie’s ultimate message and heart. In a world where corporate greed seems too big to stop and Warner Bros. has another impending merger with Paramount on the horizon, resistance against corporate bullying has become more important than ever.
Coyote vs. Acme’s stance of never giving up couldn’t have arrived at a more perfect time. On top of having plenty of laughs and ingenious visual gags, Coyote vs. Acme may be the best live-action animated hybrid since Who Framed Roger Rabbit and adds its own unique spins to the reality of its cartoon world. As both a kick in the shin to corporate malfeasance and a loving ode to the Looney Tunes of old, Coyote vs. Acme is a pure delight.
What is Coyote vs. Acme about?
Of course, we all know about the many escapades and hijinks of both Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner, as the coyote plans scheme after scheme to finally catch the roadrunner and cook him. With failed plan after failed plan, however, the suffering tends to take its toll. After another cartoonish mishap with faulty rocket skates, Wile E. sees a commercial on TV. He then decides to venture out into the city of Albuquerque to find an attorney to sue the creator of all the failed products he’s used for schemes: the Acme Corporation.
Wile E. decides to work with attorney Kevin Avery (Will Forte), a small-time billboard lawyer living out of a motel and handling small cases for malfunctioning cartoon products alongside Sal (Tone Bell), Dottie (Martha Kelly), and his niece Paige Avery (Lana Condor). What starts as what Kevin thinks is a normal cartoon product case against Acme becomes a looney legal battle.
Wile E. wants to sue Acme for every single cartoon product they’ve made (with an ulterior motive of his own that he’s secretly planning), and the company’s top official, Buddy Crane (John Cena), and CEO, Foghorn Leghorn (voiced by Eric Bauza alongside Tweety Bird, Daffy Duck, Bugs Bunny and others), are going to throw everything at Avery and the coyote to uphold the company’s image.
With his livelihood at stake, Kevin works with his employees and Wile E. to fight for what’s right in a literal David vs. Goliath scenario. In the process, they uncover an Acme conspiracy about the truth behind their testing of toon products that’s been hidden for decades.
A surprising amount of heart with all the looniness we know and love
Coyote vs. Acme’s messaging against corporate bullying and monopolies is perfectly timed for our admittedly bleak times. Still, it’s also worth noting how well the film balances this with its endlessly witty humor and the heartfelt character relationships at its center. The movie emulates a similar legal throughline to Erin Brockovich, Dark Waters, or Michael Clayton, but it offers a unique brand of legal comedy with the animated live-action hybrid concept at hand.
It’s like the strangest movie recipe of the aforementioned side-by-side with a gag-per-minute essence of Looney Tunes: Back in Action and My Cousin Vinny that, when described, sounds like a mess but is so effortlessly creative. A story that takes Wile E. Coyote’s never-give-up attitude and transforms it into a tale of resilience in the face of hurting others for the sake of corporate profit. It is an underdog story more than fit for both Looney Tunes characters and real-world problems alike.
It also helps when your legal comedy is properly funny, and the film brings the laughs and ingenuity in so many delightful ways. Admittedly, the animation of the toons themselves is mostly cell-shaded. While that can lead to occasional bits of awkward-looking posing, the film largely holds its own incredibly well.
Of course, who doesn’t love a good bit of creative slapstick or John Cena saying “you tawt you taw” while reprimanding Tweety Bird? But the biggest highlight of the cartoon backdrop is how much fun the movie has with classic cartoon props in such a loving way.
Painted tunnel gags are used to find clues that our heroes use to uncover the Acme conspiracy, with anvil launchers and cartoon hammers in court being used plenty. In the same way that Roger Rabbit heavily borrowed from detective thrillers of old, Coyote vs. Acme adds its loony logic to the world of the legal courtroom drama; both its plays at absurd Looney Tunes character pairings in the courtroom and genuine poignancy work shockingly well.
Then there’s the ultimate core of it all: Wile E. pairs up with Kevin in what makes for a pretty ingenious pairing in the animated live-action hybrid space we haven’t really seen. In both Roger Rabbit and Back in Action, the human leads of those films were paired with a more hyperactive cartoon character to have the comedy bounce off of.
Here, Wile E. is a famous silent character who can only speak through the occasional written sign. His mischievous angst throughout makes him a great foil to the more awkwardly goofy side of Forte’s Avery. It only makes the things they learn from their different perspectives on the goals they’ve been searching for in life more heartfelt.
Final thoughts on Coyote vs. Acme
Coyote vs. Acme is a delightfully hilarious legal comedy that fully embraces every touchstone of its cartoon roots while shoving a stick of dynamite to the heart of pure corporate greed. A rousing underdog story of never giving up and standing up against conglomerate bullying, and the effortlessly witty zingers and shocking amount of pathos make for one of the best films of the year. Coyote vs. Acme proves it was more than worth the wait for its deserved release to the world.
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