In the canon of live-action-meets-animation films, “Coyote vs. Acme” is certainly one of the most fun. Director Dave Green takes a fantastic yet goofy premise and treats it with surprising sincerity, and I had an absolute blast watching this entertaining movie.
After decades of being blown up, flattened, crushed, launched off cliffs, and generally victimized by every defective ACME product imaginable, Wile E. Coyote finally decides he’s had enough. And as most Looney Tunes fans will agree, it’s about time. Wile E. teams up with Kevin Avery (Will Forte), a small-time billboard lawyer who is about as far from a courtroom powerhouse as you can get. Across from them is slick corporate attorney Buddy Crane (John Cena), representing the profit-obsessed company that has spent Wile E.’s entire life trying to kill him. What follows is a surprisingly sharp David-versus-Goliath courtroom comedy that also manages to be genuinely funny and, unexpectedly, quite moving.
The smartest thing the movie does is never lose sight of who Wile E. Coyote actually is. He remains completely silent, communicating through his eyes, eyebrows, body language and those wonderfully old fashioned wooden signs. There’s no attempt to give him a voice or turn him into something he isn’t. Instead, the filmmakers understand that his eternal determination is the character. He fails constantly, gets back up, tries again, and fails again. And again. And again.
Here, that relentless refusal to quit becomes almost heroic. There’s even something quietly philosophical about it, and the film calls back to the Myth of Sisyphus: what happens when failure is not the end of the story, but the reason you keep going? It sounds like a lot to ask from a movie about a coyote suing a company that sells exploding cakes, but it works.
The relationship between Wile E. and Avery is fun, too. Forte plays Avery as a guy who has spent years getting steamrolled by bigger, more powerful people and institutions, making him the perfect partner for a cartoon character who has spent his entire existence getting steamrolled by ACME. Wile E.’s determination gradually gives Avery some of his own confidence back, and their unlikely friendship is genuine.
Green gets the Looney Tunes tone exactly right. The comedy moves quickly without becoming exhausting, and the live action world accommodates the animated characters in a way that feels natural. The classic cartoon physics are still there, but they aren’t treated like a giant novelty and are simply part of the world. Deep cut Looney Tunes references and familiar faces are sprinkled throughout, rewarding longtime fans without turning the movie into one giant nostalgia trip.
I’m honestly just so happy this movie is good. “Coyote vs. Acme” is funny, clever and unexpectedly heartfelt, but more than anything, it feels like someone actually understood why Wile E. Coyote has endured for so long. He never gives up, and neither should a good cartoon movie.
By: Louisa Moore
Screen Zealots 