Review
Inspired by a 1990s satirical New Yorker article, the eternally hungry Wile E. Coyote (Hungrious Carnivorus) tries once again to capture his eternally elusive prey, the Road Runner (Fastas Hellus). Coyote has created innumerable Rube Goldberg-level traps over the years that crucially relied on Acme products. Each time they've misfired, resulting in egregious bodily harm to the hapless canine. Today is no different, as his brand-new Acme Rocket Skates malfunction on cue, leaving him pulverized in an outlandish cavalcade of windmills and fighter jet missiles, among other things.
Despondent, he retreats to his cave, where rocket skates join towering piles of faulty Acme products—a monument to his Sisyphean pursuit. After seeing a TV ad for personal injury lawyer Kevin Avery (Will Forte), he travels to nearby Albuquerque to sue Acme. Though Kevin would rather settle for pennies than face Acme's legal team, led by ace lawyer Buddy Crane (John Cena), his optimistic niece and intern Paige (Lana Condor) and Coyote persuade him to take the case. He soon uncovers a sinister conspiracy far beyond defective gadgets.
Coyote vs. Acme is a sharp satire about the struggle between creatives and their patrons, and the everyday struggle of us all in the thrall of leviathan corporations. We all know Amazon's Acme's tentacles are suffocating society, but we all love its convenience, right? Aren't a few broken eggs worth that omelette? The disposability of workers/creatives proved famously prophetic given the real-life looniness surrounding the film's release.
Will Forte's Kevin is affable and ultimately well-intentioned, even if he seems washed up when we meet him. Forte makes it feel more like his will to fight has been ground out of him than just being cowardly. He's the only human character with any depth and a real arc – the rest are primarily stock character archetypes – and the rest of the cast's performances are fun and serve their function, with John Cena standing out as expected; the man's a charisma volcano.
The movie truly belongs to the plaintiff, Wile E. Coyote. He's given more dimension here than he's ever had, without losing the heart of the character and his sole purpose in life. He doesn't talk, only communicating through a limited array of signs, but manages to outshine the humans around him at times. It's a testament to the FX team's blending of live-action and animation. It's not quite to the level of Who Framed Roger Rabbit's immersion, but what is? They feel real, and so their plight (most are victims of Acme as well) is believable.
It's a shame the story barely explores the larger world where humans and cartoons coexist, especially since cartoon antics and Acme's product failures can actually injure humans. The focus on the legal-thriller aspect is a bit stifling for the Looney Tunes side of things, and the film's tone leans more toward adults than kids. This leads to uneven hand-waving of certain plot points, and the nostalgia may go over kids' heads who have only watched the more modern versions. Still, it offers good takeaways for both kids and adults on perseverance and standing up to power, even when that power seems insurmountable.
In the end, Coyote vs Acme is a fun legal thriller that both adults and kids can enjoy. It has more than enough charm and wit to overcome any story shortcuts, and it's ridiculous that this almost disappeared into the black hole of corporate greed. The only thing to say to Warner Bros. CEO David Zaslav, and everyone else who thought this should have been a tax write-off, is, to quote the immortal bard Bugs Bunny, "What a maroon!"
