COYOTE VS. ACME is the new animated/live action film from Writer and Producer James Gunn. If you were a pre-80s kid, you knew every part by heart. Saturday mornings were made for one thing; cartoons. And the Looney Tunes cast of characters ruled. They are all back in some form or another in a new full length movie.
Synopsis: After decades of being blown to bits by bombs, demolished by dynamite, mangled by magnets, battered by boulders, trampled by trains, tricked by tunnels, sprung by springs, steamrolled by steamrollers, maligned by misfires, bedeviled by bungees, rattled by rockets, backstabbed by bat suits, rocked by rocket skates, upended by unicycles, quaked by quake pills, rubberized by rogue bands, and hurled headlong off every cliff in the Southwest, Wile E. Coyote (Genius) finally fights back. Teaming up with billboard accident lawyer Kevin Avery, he takes on slick corporate counsel Buddy Crane (John Cena) and ACME, Inc., the profit-obsessed conglomerate behind every one of the Coyote’s chaotic catastrophes. | 1h 41m | Rated PG for cartoon violence and some language
People can argue all they want that a PG animated movie is geared for kids, but there is no doubt that the core audience for this one is over the age of fifty. Young viewers will laugh at the silly coyote and the human lawyer getting hit by cartoon objects, but the laughs and heart of this film come from knowing who these characters are and why they act and talk the way they do.
There has not been a Grisham legal thriller as elevated as this one, featuring Wile E. finally going after the untouchable ACME Corporation. But is that his only motivation? Human accident lawyer Kevin Avery (Will Forte) has spent his career simply settling lawsuits filed against ACME, always afraid of failing. He is now broke, washed up, and done trying. This could be the one trial to give him the break he needs—if only he can summon the bravery to do it. Encouraged by Wile E. and another young lawyer (Lana Condor), Kevin starts digging for clues and finds a deep-seated cover-up that could bring ACME down.
The mix of cartoon and live-action—think Who Framed Roger Rabbit—is the perfect genre choice to bring this story to the big screen. If it were entirely animated, it would not have the same effect. Having the toons feel like part of our world makes it way more engaging. On the human side, it is a literal David and Goliath dynamic as Kevin faces off against ACME’s head attorney, Buddy Crane (John Cena). Crane has all the politicians in his pocket and knows every loophole.
On the toon side, we have Wile E. Coyote wanting payback for all the lumps and bruises, plus decades of frustration from not being able to catch the Road Runner due to faulty products. ACME’s CEO (Foghorn Leghorn) cares nothing about the misfortune of his fellow toons, declaring, “What is a little pain for the greater gain?” Luckily, there are a few whistleblowers in ACME willing to help the cause—one nameless “deep throat” informant in particular. Let’s just say he is quite rascally indeed.
You can watch this movie several times and always find another Easter egg referencing the Looney Tunes world. Every character we grew up with, major and minor, is in here somewhere—sometimes prominently, and other times as a casual extra in the background. The fun is finding them all. Then there are all the one-liners ingrained in our subconscious. You may have forgotten many of them until you hear them spoken, immediately unlocking a core memory.
If you call yourself a fan at all of those classic cartoons, there is no way you can pass on this film. Okay, maybe you don’t rush out to the theater to see it, but keep an eye out for it when it hits streaming and home viewing. It was a lot of fun, with a story that may seem silly at first, but is actually full of commentary on corporate greed and hope for the little guy. If you “tawt you taw” it all before, you haven’t seen anything yet!
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