Starring: Will Forte, Lana Condor and John Cena
Directed by: Dave Green
Rated: PG
Running Time: 103 minutes
Ketchup Entertainment
Our Score: 3.5 out of 5 Stars
It’s kind of wild that there have been fewer than half a dozen original Looney Tunes feature films. Even stranger is that one of them almost became a movie nobody was allowed to see. Warner Bros. famously shelved “Coyote vs. Acme” (and other films I want to see) as part of a tax write-off before backlash eventually helped the film find a new home with Ketchup Entertainment. That’s an especially ironic fate for a movie about a beloved cartoon character taking on the giant corporation that has spent decades selling him defective products. So, after everything it took to get here, should “Coyote vs. Acme” have been given life?
“Coyote vs. Acme” is simple enough. After decades of failed attempts to catch the Road Runner with equally failed Acme products, Wile E. Coyote hatches his first live-action plan to catch his edible nemesis: hire a lawyer. Coyote heads to Albuquerque (I guess the Road Runner/Coyote hijinks have been happening in New Mexico all this time?) to hire TV and billboard lawyer Kevin Avery (Will Forte), known for securing chump-change settlements for cartoons harmed or maimed by Acme products. Coyote is dreaming bigger. As possibly the single greatest victim of Acme’s questionable quality control, he wants a high-profile lawsuit against the company responsible for decades of rockets, dynamite, giant magnets, spring-loaded contraptions and countless other catastrophes. It’s the Looney Tunes equivalent of David vs. Goliath.
We quickly learn that Acme is like any contemporary conglomerate. It produces smartphones, energy, toiletries, makeup, food and, of course, rocket skates. Everyone, from Coyote to Avery to the average person walking around this “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?”-esque world, seems to know the company is terrible. It’s obviously involved in illegal activities, has politicians in its pocket and doesn’t appear to have anyone’s best interests at heart. That’s why, despite all the cartoon hijinks, the ideas behind “Coyote vs. Acme” feel surprisingly pertinent. A massive corporation can screw over the little guy repeatedly, and eventually that little guy may wonder if getting flattened by an anvil was actually his fault.
Avery understands that frustration. He aspires to be a great lawyer, but believes the system has never given him much of a chance to prove it. Coyote has spent his life believing the Acme system is similarly rigged against him. Their mutual frustration gradually turns them from attorney and client into two lovable losers who recognize something of themselves in each other. It’s also why Forte is such perfect casting. He can play off absurdity like a classically trained clown while somehow eliciting genuine sympathy for a loser. That’s an essential skill when your primary scene partner is an animated coyote who doesn’t talk.
John Cena similarly understands the assignment as Acme’s attorney. He has terrific comedic timing and plays the increasingly ridiculous proceedings with almost complete sincerity. At times, it feels like Forte, Cena and the other human actors were handed a serious courtroom drama script and nobody bothered to tell them their clients were Saturday morning cartoons. Lana Condor is unfortunately given less to work with as Avery’s legal assistant, functioning too often as the character responsible for pushing everyone toward whatever the plot needs to do next.
Thankfully, not everything is serious. God no. Coyote continues finding increasingly terrible ways to use Acme products. The writers pepper the movie with clever one-liners, wordplay and blink-and-you’ll-miss-it sight gags. Anyone who grew up watching Looney Tunes is also rewarded with appearances and twists involving Tweety Bird, Sylvester, Taz, Foghorn Leghorn and others.
That nostalgia generally works because “Coyote vs. Acme” understands the characters rather than simply parading them across the screen for recognition. The cartoon physics remain intact even when the characters enter the human world. Coyote can still endure physical trauma that would reduce Will Forte to a fine red mist, shake it off and move on to his next terrible idea. But that creates one of the film’s biggest problems.
Looney Tunes cartoons never really needed consequences. Wile E. Coyote can fall off a cliff because his failure is the punchline. A 103-minute feature needs character arcs, escalating stakes, emotional investment and some reason to care about what happens when the credits roll. “Coyote vs. Acme” mostly succeeds at stretching that formula to feature length, but you can occasionally feel it stretching. The movie runs a little too long, sometimes treats its central conflict more seriously than necessary and struggles to convince us there are genuinely dire consequences awaiting characters who have spent generations surviving explosions, falls and industrial accidents.
Some of its humor also assumes familiarity with characters whose cultural ubiquity isn’t what it was 33 years ago when I was plopped in front of a TV. Younger viewers can certainly enjoy the cartoon mayhem, but longtime Looney Tunes fans are going to get substantially more out of the references, cameos and twists on familiar characters.
Still, the nostalgia and social satire make “Coyote vs. Acme” refreshing. It doesn’t merely ask us to remember loving these characters as children. It takes the ridiculous logic we accepted as kids and filters it through adult frustrations involving corporations, lawyers, bureaucracy and the uncomfortable realization that maybe the company selling you defective rocket skates bears some responsibility for the resulting crater. And then reality made the joke even better.
Wile E. Coyote spends “Coyote vs. Acme” fighting a giant corporation that decided he was disposable. Then “Coyote vs. Acme” had to survive a giant corporation that decided it was disposable. After everything Warner Bros., Acme and the laws of physics have thrown at him over the past 75 years, somehow the Coyote survived again.