Coyote vs Acme

This delightfully anarchic comedy is what you get if you cross a Looney Tunes cartoon with a John Grisham legal thriller, and it’s hands down the best live-action/animation blend since Who Framed Roger Rabbit.  Not only does its humour offer something for audiences of all ages, but its ‘David vs Goliath’ storyline is all the more poignant given the real-life events surrounding the movie.

Premise:  After his latest attempt to catch the Road Runner fails thanks to another malfunctioning Acme product, Wile E. Coyote hits upon the idea of suing the corporate behemoth over its defective goods.  After hiring jaded and lazy personal injury lawyer Kevin Avery (Will Forte) and his idealistic niece Paige (Lana Condor), they face the full force of the Acme Corporation’s legal team, led by Buddy Crane (John Cena).

Review:

Leaving aside the real-life hurdles that this film had to overcome to make it into cinemas, the bottom line is that Coyote vs Acme is a really fun and enjoyable family friendly comedy that offers something for everyone.  The fact that it’s as good as it is really highlights how unforgivable Warner Bros.’ decision was to shelve the completed film in order to claim a tax write-off, and the fact that it’s now receiving such a positive reaction (after public outcry and industry backlash forced Warner Bros to reverse its decision and allow the film to be sold to another company) will hopefully provide some sense of satisfaction and vindication to all of the cast and crew who worked on this movie.

It’s ironic – given how the soulless executives at Warner Bros sought to destroy the filmmakers’ work for a quick buck – that the plot of Coyote vs Acme is all about standing up for the little guy against the corporate giants who are willing to walk over anyone in the pursuit of profit.  The filmmakers obviously had no idea what was going to happen in real life when they made this film, but the movie now has an extra layer of pathos because life imitated art.

“…the comedy offers something for everyone…”

The film itself is an unusual, but effective, melding of slapstick comedy and legal drama.  Plotwise, if you stripped out all the jokes this would still make for an inventive conspiracy thriller, with Wile E. Coyote and his legal team stumbling upon bigger secrets in their quest to uncover the truth, just as you’d see in a 90s John Grisham movie or Erin Brockovich.  But the other side of the coin is that this story takes place in a world where humans and cartoons live side-by-side, meaning that lazy personal injury lawyer Kevin Avery (Will Forte) is able to make a nice living dealing with cases involving anvil-related injuries and falling pianos.

The comedy in the film offers something for everyone – for the young (and the young at heart) there are some great slapstick comedy moments, and in fact, the opening section of the film is essentially an extended Wile E. Coyote & the Road Runner cartoon.  But the human cast all add additional layers to the humour that provide a lot for the adults in the audience too, so I’d classify this as a family friendly comedy rather than a kids’ movie.  Will Forte in particular is great as the comedic anchor of the movie (effectively playing against type as the straight-man to Wile E. Coyote), but John Cena and Lana Condor also get chances to shine, and even relatively small roles (like Martha Kelly as a deadpan member of Wile E.’s legal team, or P. J. Byrne as an Acme lawyer) get their own laugh-out-loud moments.

“…took me back to my childhood, while also entertaining the adult in me…”

And then, of course, there are the Looney Tunes characters themselves, although I don’t want to spoil which other characters make an appearance outside of Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner.  But if (like me) you grew up on the Looney Tunes cartoons, this film really captured their sense of fun, and took me back to my childhood while also entertaining the adult in me.  The shadow of Who Framed Roger Rabbit has loomed large over all subsequent live-action/cartoon movies and has been the gold standard for nearly 40 years, but Coyote vs Acme may very well have now secured the silver medal spot.