Consistently clever and funny, Dave Green’s “Coyote vs. Acme” opens with the funny credit that this is “Based on a True Story.” The true story behind the fight to get this film seen could someday make for a fun behind-the-scenes documentary about the perils of making anti-monopoly films for a company that wants to rule the world, but it’s just one of the first of many smart, unexpected jokes in a movie filled with them. In a time when excuses for children’s entertainment are often just marketing to get kids to buy new toys or force their parents to maintain a streaming subscription, “Coyote vs. Acme” understands that you can be both gloriously silly and remarkably smart at the same time. It’s got a few minor pacing and length issues that keep it from animated perfection, but this ode to the resilience of a homicidal canine is almost inspirational in its final beats, reminding us that we’re all, in a sense, chasing our own unobtainable Road Runners. Meep meep.
The sharp script by “May/December” scribe Samy Burch (working from a 1990 The New Yorker article) unfolds in a world reminiscent of the masterful “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?,” one in which cartoon characters and real people live side by side. After a clever opening sequence in which a cartoon Dr. Lorre is hunted by armed soldiers (just the use of “dehydrated boulders” to escape had me laughing already), Green gives us a true Coyote vs. Road Runner sequence for the ages, and arguably the best scene in the film. It’s an amazing cavalcade of misfires involving rocket shoes, magnets, and a missile. Of course, Road Runner escapes again, as Wile E. Coyote goes poof on the ground below.
Nursing his wounds at home for the umpteenth time, Coyote sees an ad for a law firm that asks, “Been in a cartoon accident?” It’s the marketing of Avery, Jones, and Maltese (a reference to legendary animators Tex, Chuck, and Michael), a Saul Goodman-esque company that exists to settle cartoon grievances, often against the all-powerful Acme Corporation (owned by Foghorn Leghorn, of course). Faulty rocket shoes should mean maybe $300 in a settlement, but Wile E. has brought a magic box filled with hundreds of such devices. When the box gets sent to Acme instead of just the boots, it sets in motion a massive lawsuit against the powerful company, pitting the relentless-but-silent coyote against a company that hasn’t just been letting him down for generations but might have been doing so purposefully.
Like the great Bob Hoskins in “Roger Rabbit,” Will Forte is the foil for the animated chaos in Green’s film; he strikes just the right tone as Kevin Avery, himself a victim of a system that seems designed to valorize people like his former ally Buddy Crane (John Cena), now the lead attorney for Acme. The cameos by Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Tasmanian Devil, Tweety Bird, and so many more will be the draw for both old and young Looney Tunes fans, but it’s Forte, Cena, and Lana Condor as Kevin’s niece-assistant who really hold this thing together; they’re our eyes into this impossible world. Forte and Cena are perfectly willing to lean into the physical silliness of it all, allowing us to forget early on that they’re acting opposite green tennis balls. Their comic energies give the film great balance, with Forte embracing his everyman awkwardness and Cena leaning into his alpha male screen presence.
The reshaping of Wile E. Coyote from an antagonist into a victim of the machine works well, but it’s really the non-stop verbal and sight gags that elevate “Coyote vs. Acme.” Whether it’s Luis Guzman being described as a “no-nonsense, no-silly-stuff judge,” or the random, almost vaudevillian jokes like “They told me he ran off with his secretary but I don’t think so—his secretary was a penguin,” Burch’s script is filled with enough minor chuckles to keep most people smiling throughout. There’s a bit with a courtroom sketch artist of a rocket shoe chasing Guzman’s judge around the court that justified a theatrical release on its own.
Honestly, the film could have used more of those unpredictable non-sequiturs; its only real flaw is how often it returns to the Acme mystery plot, repeating some plot points more than it needed to (it’s an epidemic in the streaming era). It also just feels a bit longer than it should be, but that could just be my Looney-loving cortex that’s more accustomed to quick hits than spending over 100 minutes with these characters.
Finally, the journey of “Coyote vs. Acme” undeniably works in the film’s favor in terms of its legacy. Dropped on HBO Max on a weekday, this movie almost certainly would have been quickly forgotten, but its arc can now be remembered as a real-life mirror of its plot: A story of a little company (Ketchup Entertainment) coming to the rescue when the system fails one of entertainment history’s most creatively consistent IPs. It’s a reminder that there are ways to homage decades of animated comedy without feeling like fan service, bringing these characters to both new fans and the old ones who may have forgotten how much they love them.
“Coyote vs. Acme” opens on August 28. In THEATERS.
