Coyote vs. Acme

Who Framed Roger Rabbit remains the standard for movies where reality and animation bump up against each other. It succeeds in stretching the insane absurdity of a cartoon short to feature length by attaching it to a recognizable genre — the detective movie — and using that genre as the framework for a barrage of gags. Coyote vs. Acme comes close to Roger Rabbit’s heights, using the legal-thriller structure in which an underdog (or in this case, an under-coyote) faces off against a ruthless corporation.

The evil corporation is, of course, ACME. (“Our company has family values, and we value our family… of companies.”) When the opening production-company titles of the film joke that Warner Animation Group is a wholly owned subsidiary of ACME Corporation, that gag is less funny than it might have been, given that Warner attempted to bury Coyote vs. Acme as a tax write-off.

We open on Wile E. Coyote’s umpteenth attempt to capture the speedy Road Runner with the use of ACME gadgets. (In this case, a magnet-glove and rocket-powered skates.) After this pursuit goes terribly wrong, as it always does, the frustrated Coyote sees a TV ad for lawyer Kevin Avery (Will Forte) of the firm Avery, Jones & Maltese, which specializes in handling cartoon lawsuits. (If you recognize those three names as legendary Looney Tunes directors, you’re squarely in the demographic of Coyote vs. Acme, but you don’t have to get the movie’s many inside-baseball references to be entertained.)

Avery, it turns out, is a burnout, barely caring about his job or making any kind of effort, and all he offers Coyote is a low triple-digit payout for his pain and suffering. But Kevin’s ambitious niece Paige (Lana Condor, To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before), who’s interning with the firm, submits claims for the hundreds of defective ACME missiles, bouncy springs, flying bat costumes, giant magnets, and other devices that have failed Coyote over the years. The size of the complaint catches the notice of ACME lead attorney Buddy Crane (John Cena), Kevin’s law-school classmate and bully, and the brash corporate lawyer (who wears a hilarious series of increasingly large bolo ties) does everything he can to brush away Coyote’s claims.

As the case proceeds, Kevin and his team uncover nefarious secrets and conspiracies at ACME. Can they find the proof they need without having anvils dropped upon them? And what’s Coyote’s never-discussed (to be fair, he doesn’t speak at all, outside of words on a few held-up signs) agenda behind taking this case to court?

Screenwriter Samy Burch (Todd Haynes’ May December) clearly knows her Looney Tunes lore, starting with the fact that the film is set in Albuquerque, known for both its left turns and its Carrot Festival. And even though the cartoon-lawsuit bit was already the focus of the New Yorker piece that inspired the film, to say nothing of Cartoon Network’s Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law, she finds new inroads to portraying Porky Pig and pals as plaintiffs.

Amid the pervasive wackiness, which never gets tiresome, Burch skillfully weaves in both a legitimate mystery (its real-life ramifications bring to mind another Todd Haynes film, Dark Waters) and some genuine character moments. We know Kevin is going have an arc that takes him from disaffected ambulance-chaser to dedicated seeker of justice, but what’s surprising is how much the growing friendship between Kevin and Coyote actually matters, giving the movie stakes beyond the secrets hidden within ACME’s research department.

Director Dave Green (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows) and cinematographer Brandon Trost (The Naked Gun 2025) clearly made the decision to shoot a movie about lawyers that happens to have cartoon characters in it and not the other way around. While some viewers may be put off by the fact that there’s no bright, shiny Toontown here, the choice ultimately works, even if digital characters sharing space with human actors doesn’t have the same lushness as the more traditionally animated Roger Rabbit.

Coyote vs. Acme gets the slightest bit tied up in its own plot mechanics toward the end, but the rapid-fire comedy — which never sacrifices the film’s investment in the characters — remains constant throughout. Warner Bros. should say “That’s all, folks” to any future attempts to revive the misbegotten Space Jam franchise, but court should continue to be in session for these litigious toons.

Director: Dave Green
Screenwriters: Samy Burch; story by James Gunn & Jeremy Slater and Samy Burch; based on the New Yorker article by Ian Frazier
Cast: Will Forte, Lana Condor, Tone Bell, John Cena
Executive producers: Jesse Ehrman, Allison Abbate, Carsten Lorenz
Producers: Chris DeFaria, James Gunn
Director of photography: Brandon Trost
Production design: Steve Arnold
Editing: Carsten Kurpanek
Music: Steven Price
Sound design: Adrian Rhodes, supervising sound editor
Production companies: Ketchup Entertainment, Warner Bros. Pictures
In English
101 minutes