Coyote vs Acme: Movie Review

Coyote vs. Acme is a giddy, big-hearted rescue of a movie — the rare studio leftover that actually deserved to escape the vault. After years of being treated like a defective rocket skate, Dave Green’s live-action/animation hybrid finally hit theaters and proved Wile E. Coyote’s oldest lesson: persistence is its own kind of genius.

The setup is simple and perfect. After decades of anvils, exploding crates, and “guaranteed” jet-powered roller skates, Wile E. hires a struggling personal-injury lawyer (Will Forte, wonderfully hangdog) and sues the Acme Corporation. What follows is part courtroom farce, part Looney Tunes reunion, and part underdog fable about the little guy who refuses to stop chasing what he wants. Forte gives the film a surprising amount of soul; John Cena has a blast as Acme’s grinning attack-dog attorney; Lana Condor keeps the human side sharp. Around them, Bugs, Daffy, Foghorn, Tweety, Elmer, and the rest drop in like old friends who never forgot how to wreck a scene.

Green and screenwriter Samy Burch (working from a story that also involved James Gunn) understand the cartoons better than most recent attempts. The gags have snap. The integration of toons and people is clean and playful. The movie never talks down to the shorts it loves, and it never pretends the violence was ever anything but joyful chaos. Underneath the slapstick is a sly corporate satire that lands without turning preachy: Acme is every company that sells you the dream, then bills you for the crater.

What makes it linger is the unexpected sweetness. Wile E. still doesn’t speak, and he doesn’t need to. His partnership with Forte’s burned-out lawyer becomes a small, funny portrait of two creatures who keep getting flattened and keep standing up. When the Road Runner finally enters the story in a way that matters, the movie earns a lump in the throat it has no business having.

Is it Who Framed Roger Rabbit? No. It doesn’t need to be. It’s a brisk, generous, extremely watchable 100-odd minutes that treats classic cartoon anarchy as something worth protecting. After the long, ridiculous journey this film took just to exist, watching it feels like justice — and like a really good time.

Beep beep. Worth the chase.  I watched it with my nephew and sister. We loved it.