Coyote vs. Acme Brings The Live-Action Hybrid Movie To The Next Level
The embattled Looney Tunes movie is more than worth the wait.
Hollywood has been searching for the successor to Greta Gerwig’s Barbie since it became a bona fide cultural phenomenon three years ago. But no amount of halfhearted toy movies or baldfaced IP cash grabs could capture that specific combination of earnest homage and campy meta-humor that made Barbie such a success. It’s ironic, then, that the closest Hollywood has gotten was hiding under Warner Bros.’ nose — and would’ve never made it to the big screen if the studio had gotten its way. But, luckily for us, Coyote vs. Acme is finally here, and it’s a triumph in every single way.
At this point, Coyote vs. Acme may be more well-known for its troubled journey to the big screen — first getting shelved by Warner Bros. in 2023 in an attempt at a tax write-off, then getting saved by the subsequent public backlash — but it’s immediately apparent that the movie is much more than its controversy. The movie follows Wile E. Coyote, who, after decades of fruitlessly pursuing Road Runner, decides to finally take it up with the Acme Corporation by hiring personal injury lawyer Kevin Avery (Will Forte) to sue the big company. It’s the great premise for a ton of gags (after all, what was Wile E. Coyote put on this Earth for but to suffer for our entertainment?), but Coyote vs. Acme takes its joke one step further and delivers the best live-action/animation hybrid film since 1988’s Who Framed Roger Rabbit.
It’s because, like Barbie before it, Coyote vs. Acme treats its world as seriously and earnestly as it does its gags. It’ll throw an anvil on Wile E. Coyote, but then make you feel a little bad about it. It’s a miracle of tonal balancing — and one that’ll make you laugh just as much as it will make you cry.
Wile E. Coyote tries on his new Acme rocket boots.
Coyote vs. Acme begins in 1992, when Dr. Peter Lorre (voiced by Looney Tunes legend Eric Bauza) attempts to blow the whistle on shady Acme practices, only to be captured and imprisoned inside a portable hole, never to be heard from again… Cut to present day, and Wile E. Coyote is deep in his latest scheme to capture Road Runner — this time, it’s rocket shoes — which naturally blow up in his face. Nursing his wounds and reminiscing on all the other harebrained schemes that nearly maimed him, he stumbles upon a TV ad for Avery, Jones & Maltese, a personal injury law firm in Albuquerque that specializes in cases of cartoon violence involving Acme products. It dawns on him, as he sees the mountains of failed Acme products around him, that he may be Victim No. 1 of the corporation.
But when he comes to Kevin Avery for help, the lawyer isn’t quite the warrior for justice his ad presents him as; rather, he’s a washed-up burnout who mostly gets his clients pennies in wimpy settlements. But using a combination of his natural wiles and some good old-fashioned dynamite, Wile E. Coyote manages to turn his case into a major classic action case, which Kevin’s idealistic niece and intern Paige (Lana Condor) enthusiastically supports. Kevin reluctantly goes along with the case, which pits him against his old Harvard rival, Buddy Crane (John Cena, perfectly cast and wonderfully expressive), now a high-powered Acme attorney who looks like John Cena. But their highly publicized case unexpectedly drags them into a wide-reaching conspiracy that stretches back to 1992 and involves a nefarious series of experimental trials called “Project Sisyphus.”
Kevin and Wile form the emotional core of this movie.
One of the first things there is to admire about Coyote vs. Acme is just how effortless it is. It juggles its various plot threads and many, many gags by centering its emotional narrative on the relationship between Wile E. Coyote — who, it should be noted, remains silent the entire film and only speaks in signs that he admits he only has a limited number of — and Kevin Avery. The two of them develop a delightful buddy-comedy dynamic, with Forte demonstrating the kind of comedic panache displayed by the best actors who play opposite a cartoon character. Kevin and Wile frequently clash, often with violent results — though the violence in cartoon form (explosions, piano crashes, etc.) is handwaved away as only affecting cartoons (and occasionally, a real car or wall), who by nature frequently bounce back.
Or do they? As much as Coyote vs. Acme cheekily plays out the classic Looney Tunes gags that have kept America entertained for decades, it also seriously pokes at the fragile apparatus that keeps this human-cartoon world in harmony. Do the cartoons really not feel every scrape, every splat, every anvil? Are they really fine with being considered lesser than humans? Must one imagine Wile E. Coyote happy? These are a few of the bigger questions that Coyote vs. Acme poses as it takes a sudden turn from legal comedy into a darker, noir-colored thriller, which involves some anonymous tips from Bugs Bunny, a Daffy Duck who’s truly gone daffy, and Tweety Bird being blackmailed into being a mercenary. (All of whom are also voiced by Bauza.)
Cena chews up the scenery almost as much as the Looney Tunes do.
But don’t worry about your Looney Tunes getting a little too dark; director Dave Green and writer Samy Burch, who co-wrote the story with James Gunn and Jeremy Slater, keep the gags and jokes coming a mile-a-minute, and the tone maintains its breezy quality throughout. Despite the film’s years spent languishing in its own legal hell, the jokes remain remarkably sharp and relevant — one particular joke about an anti-predator spray involves the lecherous Pepé Le Pew. And the animation, provided by DNEG in a combination of 2D and 3D, looks beautifully crisp and natural against the sun-dappled landscapes of Albuquerque.
Once canceled, miraculously saved, Coyote vs. Acme is the heir to Barbie that Hollywood has been looking for. It’s not just that it’s funny, breezy, smart, and earnest; it’s that it does it all while deftly paying homage to the franchise that has delighted audiences for nearly a century. It is easily the best live-action animation hybrid of this century. And that truly is all, folks.
