Advance Movie Review – “Coyote vs. Acme”
By Bob Garver
The dialogue-free Road Runner/Wile E. Coyote cartoons are my favorite of the Looney Tunes. No jokes centered around annoying accents or speech impediments, just pure physical comedy about a hapless carnivore and his Ahab-like obsession with catching and eating a skinny flightless bird. Although the cartoons are ridiculous, they follow strict rules, outlined by creator Chuck Jones. Rules include the action always having to take place in the American Southwest and the Road Runner always having to stay on the road. Oh, and the coyote can only use devices provided by the unseen Acme Corporation. These devices’ failure, along with the coyote’s own ineptitude, must always be the cause of the villain’s downfall, which usually takes the form of an actual fall from a great height.
New live-action/animation hybrid “Coyote vs. Acme” sees the coyote finally have enough of the technology giant’s faulty products. He enlists Albuquerque attorney Kevin Avery (Will Forte), a lawyer so unambitious that he rarely settles for more than three figures, to sue the corporate behemoth for decades of defectiveness. I would have suggested a different small-time lawyer from Albuquerque, but I guess this isn’t a universe where they can just Call Saul.
Even with his loyal niece Paige (Lana Condor) supporting him as an intern, the deck is stacked against Avery. Acme has a powerful legal team led by undefeated hotshot Buddy Crane (John Cena). His accident-prone client is unsympathetic, especially since as a cartoon, he can’t sustain lasting injuries, putting in doubt how much damage the backfiring products have really done. Also, the key witness is going to have to be the only other being in the vicinity when the products failed: The Road Runner himself. How will Avery ever get the bird to testify on behalf of an enemy that has always tried – and is, in fact, still trying – to eat him?
Avery and Wile E. do have one thing on their side: the truth. Acme CEO Foghorn Leghorn has indeed been exploiting cartoon characters via defective products for years. There’s a complex conspiracy in play, and other Looney Tunes characters are part of it. Daffy Duck was a product tester driven insane by unsafe working conditions. Tweety Bird is being forced to work as an Acme spy against his will. An animated version of Peter Lorre was a scientist silenced for knowing too much. As for the mysterious whistleblower secretly leaking information to Avery… let’s just say the movie’s setting of Albuquerque is where he should take a left turn.
It’s hard to talk about “Coyote vs. Acme” without mentioning the rough road the movie had to its release. To make a long story short, Warner Bros. Discovery kept the completed film from release for three years so it could take a tax write-off. The film might never have been released at all had distributor Ketchup Entertainment not bought the rights for $50 million. That Warner Bros. Discovery tried to deny the public any completed film with years of effort behind it is disgraceful, but that it was this gem of a movie is downright dethpicable.
“Coyote vs. Acme” is the best Looney Tunes-related output in decades. The classic physical comedy is so sharp, it’s like the characters spent every day since the last Chuck Jones-directed short in 1963 training for this movie. It also hits some surprisingly strong emotional beats about Coyote and Road Runner needing each other as nemeses. I can’t say it always works as a legal thriller, and some of the logic gets murky as mediums are blurred, but overall this movie is a lot of fun. I hope it makes a lot of money for Ketchup Entertainment and shames Warner Bros. Discovery for treating it – and Looney Tunes fans in general – so poorly.
Grade: B
“Coyote vs. Acme” is rated PG for cartoon violence and some language. Its running time is 101 minutes.
Contact Bob Garver at [email protected].
