Since Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav wanted to turn Coyote Vs. Acme into an unreleased tax write-off, it’s hard to watch the movie in a vacuum. The Roger Rabbit style take on a classic Looney Tunes gag has become a symbol of the battle between the creative side of the industry and the big business interests that seem to dominate modern day Hollywood. But it wasn’t made that way! It was made to just be a movie meant to entertain audiences. And suffering succotash does it do that, because the hilarious and heartfelt Coyote vs. Acme is absolutely fantastic entirely unto itself. And that’s why it is also a massive indictment of the people who didn’t want anyone to see it.
Coyote vs. Acme gets its name after the case at the center of its story. Wile E. Coyote hires/tricks a loser lawyer into taking on his massive lawsuit against the ACME company for its faulty products. It’s a fun premise that works so much better than it sounds. The film takes place in a world where humans live alongside cartoons without question or explanation. It’s great, and one of the reasons the whole thing works so well. By accepting the reality of an unreal situation no one has to wink at the audience or explain anything. It allows the film to just focus on being funny and good.
The most unexpected element of this world is that no one knows the famous Looney Tunes characters. They’re just people (beings?) who pop up in ways viewers can appreciate, even if the characters can’t. The film mines so much double comedy from this approach and it’s incredible. A situation is humorous entirely on its own terms while also being funny as an unacknowledged reference.
Those who grew up with the iconic cartoon (even with repeats of old episodes as I did) will easily recognize how the movie uses Looney Tunes‘ general comedic sensibilities to perfection. The film not only loves Looney Tunes, it understands why it is timeless. It’s quickly paced with no filler. It also frequently foreshadows future gags and bits that are somehow even funnier because you know they’re coming and then the execution exceeds your expectations. There’s one obvious gag with water in a courtroom scene that is the funniest thing I’ve seen all year. Easily. It’s just setup-punchline-laughter again and again, with some great one-liners and physical comedy mixed in-between.
It also looks great. Human characters are always looking exactly where they should so their cartoon counterparts feel as real and present as them. And by utilizing the classic animation style rather than a more modern technique, it feels authentic to this world and franchise.
Despite how much charming and laugh-out-loud silliness the film packs, it also manages to also be sincere and genuinely emotional. This is a story about something, namely persistence, purpose, and redemption. It is also about how big business destroys whatever it wants in pursuit of the bottom dollar. That theme is accidental perfection considering what big business interests wanted to do to the movie before Ketchup Entertainment rescued the film.
All of that, the humor and heart, works thanks to Will Forte’s pitch perfect performance. Forte can seem like a human cartoon in other projects, but here he’s wonderfully understated. Everything he does is funnier because he doesn’t act like a human Looney Tunes character. He’s a sad sack person suffering with quiet resignation equally to both cartoon buffoonery and his own failures. That approach heightens the inherent silliness of the story and also its sincerity. The result is that by the end I was feeling genuine emotions for Wile E. Coyote.
Yes, this movie made me feel bad for a cartoon character who spends all his time trying to eat an innocent bird. And that happened while I was laughing the entire time.
What a movie! What a movie! And David Zaslav didn’t want anybody to see this. It’s….I can’t believe it. There’s not only an audience for this film, but as a creative endeavor it deserves to be seen. In the truest sense of the phrase: “What the f***?”
Look, Coyote vs. Acme isn’t perfect. John Cena is very good as the world’s greatest lawyer and main villain Buddy Crane, but the film doesn’t use him enough. The moments he gets to be funny are great and I wish he had three or four more of those scenes. Ultimately his character feels slightly underdeveloped, and that’s a missed opportunity to make the film even better. But that’s really my only complaint.
Well, that complaint and the fact that if an executive could watch this movie and think it’s in his studio’s best interest to not release it, then there’s something very wrong with Hollywood. Fortunately Coyote vs. Acme is not only coming out and worth seeing, it’s a wholly worthy symbol in a battle much bigger than one cartoon’s fictional lawsuit.
Coyote vs. Acme ⭐ (4.5 of 5)
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