The first part of this review is free from narrative spoilers for Coyote vs. Acme. The end of the spoiler-free section is clearly marked.
When I was a kid, I loved Who Framed Roger Rabbit, and I also enjoyed Space Jam when that arrived a few years later. The whole “cartoons in the real world” thing is just a really fun and creative idea, and both of those films took that premise and told wacky and funny stories with it. So I was looking forward to Coyote vs. Acme based on little more than that fun and familiar concept.
I giggled, chuckled, and laughed pretty much the whole way through Coyote vs. Acme. It’s a truly funny film with plenty of that Looney Tunes wackiness that kids and adults alike have enjoyed for decades – but it’s also a film with heart. Its core story (which we’ll get into in more detail if you stick with me to the spoiler-ific part of the review) had a couple of simple but powerful and timely messages. While its characters could feel pretty basic and tropey, the messages – and crucially, the way in which Coyote vs. Acme delivered those messages – were incredibly well-done.
I think most folks would be familiar with Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner from their numerous appearances in Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies. The characters date back to 1949 – making them almost eighty years old. The core story of the Coyote trying to catch the Road Runner has barely changed, and their cartoon appearances all fall into that same mould.
Just in case you missed all of those cartoons and shorts, though, the only thing you really need to know is that Wile E. Coyote tries – and fails – to catch his nemesis, the Road Runner, using all kinds of wacky, cartoonish schemes and plots. There. That’s all the background you need headed into Coyote vs. Acme!
Coyote vs. Acme almost didn’t make it to release. The film was complete, but was set to be cancelled by the (now defunct) Warner Bros.-Discovery in order to write off its production costs against the corporation’s tax bill. If that sounds like the kind of cartoonishly mean-spirited thing that only the fictional Acme Corporation would ever do… well, think again, because Warner Bros.-Discovery literally did the exact same thing to Batgirl a couple of years earlier.
Thankfully, however, director Dave Green didn’t give up on the film, and Warner Bros.-Discovery was eventually persuaded to find a distributor and release it. Ketchup Entertainment – which tends to distribute smaller, indie titles – picked up the rights, and Coyote vs. Acme made it to the cinema earlier this year. I picked up the film digitally, and for the money I paid, I can say I had a wonderful time with Coyote vs. Acme.
The film has a great mix of humour and heart, with plenty of cartoony silliness being balanced out by just enough relatable character moments to make it feel like it has purpose. And the core themes at the centre of Coyote vs. Acme – while they may admittedly feel a little muddled coming from a massive company – work really well as the premise for a “little guy taking on a massive corporation” kind of story. Wile E. Coyote – the main cartoon protagonist – stays true to his characterisation, too, and even undergoes an arc of his own.
So I’m happy to heartily recommend Coyote vs. Acme to… well, pretty much anyone. If you go into the film expecting arthouse cinema or Oscar-bait, I guess you’d be disappointed. But if you set appropriate expectations for a “Looney Tunes in the real world” story, akin to something like Who Framed Roger Rabbit or Space Jam, there really is a lot to love.
Up next, we’ll talk about some of the characters and plot points in a little more detail. If you want to completely avoid spoilers, I hope you’ll consider bookmarking this review and coming back after you’ve seen the film! If you’ve already watched it – or you don’t care about spoilers – then stick around, and let’s get into the story!
Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers for Coyote vs. Acme from here on out.
Where Coyote vs. Acme had a message, it was about the virtues of a “little guy” taking on a big corporation because it’s the right thing to do… and because, left unchecked, corporations will misbehave. This message was interesting and generally well-presented, but as I’ve said before… when you know who created this story, it does kind of blunt the impact of the messaging just a tad. Warner Bros.-Discovery, prior to being absorbed into the ever-growing corporate blob that is Skydance, was hardly a small company, so this anti-corporate angle can just feel a little… fake.
Or it does if, like me, you like to think about things a little too much!
What I liked on this side of the story, though, was how the story reads like an anti-animal testing metaphor. What the Acme Corporation was doing to cartoons – in their view, to make better and safer products for humans – is exactly what many real-world companies and corporations do to animals. Now, I’m not against animal testing in *every* instance; it can be a nuanced subject and it’s way more complex than I have time for in a review of a Looney Tunes film! But the best films don’t just throw their characters into wacky situations – they make a point. And this message about animal testing is there in Coyote vs. Acme if you choose to view the film that way.
The film also makes a point about political corruption, and how some of the biggest companies in the United States – represented by the fictitious Acme – are in bed with politicians. Perhaps I’m feeling this message all the more because of when I watched the film; America’s mid-term elections are literally taking place today, at time of writing. But the way Acme was presented, through its leadership and its legal representatives, definitely had something to say about corruption.
At the end of the film, Acme’s lawyer – played with wonderful villainy by John Cena – even cries out to the politicians that “that’s not what I pay you for!” or words to that effect, and while I guess you could say it’s a sad commentary on the state of things… doing anything to draw attention to how closely politicians and big businesses are aligned is a net positive, at least in my book. Was it the biggest part of the film? No. But was it worth using a film like this to highlight just how corrupt certain politicians can be? Absolutely.
In terms of characters, there’s nothing really special about Coyote vs. Acme. Kevin – the main lawyer who Wile E. Coyote hires – undergoes an arc across the film as he crosses paths with a former classmate who became more successful, but it’s a pretty basic story that’s been seen before. Wide-eyed intern Paige doesn’t really change in any meaningful way; she starts out with fresh-faced enthusiasm and a desire to change the world… and that’s where she ends up, too.
The Coyote himself, though, does go on a bit of a journey.
I liked the way the film took a character who’s really an antagonist and presented him in a bit of a different way. Wile E. Coyote chooses to take Acme to court not really out of any desire to force the company to apologise nor even to win any compensation… but because it’s his latest scheme to catch the Road Runner. But later, as the film progresses, we see somewhat of an evolution in his character. Not only does he develop a genuine bond and friendship with Kevin, but he comes to respect the place that the Road Runner has in his life, too.
And all of this is communicated silently – with the occasional handheld sign!
If you’d told me going into Coyote vs. Acme that Wile E. Coyote would get a genuinely relatable and even emotional character arc… I don’t think I’d have believed it. But that really is what the film delivered. At first, he just seemed like the silly cartoon character from those Looney Tunes shorts… but by the time the film reached its emotional climax, I really did find myself invested in his journey. As Kevin shouted at him that he was never going to achieve his only ambition in life, and Wile E. looked up at him, crestfallen… yeah. I felt that! And the Road Runner’s last-second arrival to speak on his friend’s behalf was a genuinely emotional moment that the film built up to and felt like it had earned.
Coyote vs. Acme was creative in the way it used its central character, though. Rather than trying to present Wile E. Coyote as a pure victim, the story made sure to let us know that it was – at least in part – his own desire to catch and cook the Road Runner that was his driving force. I think it would’ve been easy to go all-in on one or the other; to try to depict Wile E. Coyote as either a total victim of Acme or as a ruthless villain and liar. But his story straddled that line well enough – and that meant his growth and emotional journey stuck the landing.
The intrigue at the Acme Corporation, and the way Kevin, Paige, and Wile E. unravelled it, was in the mould of classic conspiracy-thrillers, and while it was nothing unique or original, I felt it worked well enough. It came across as a fun and light-hearted take on the idea, thanks to the presence of Looney Tunes characters like Bugs Bunny, and this was perhaps the side of the story where the blend of cartoon and live-action worked the best.
Coyote vs. Acme blends this investigation and the subsequent courtroom drama with cartoon wackiness in a truly clever way. A worse film would’ve felt tonally jarring or completely discordant with itself; it’s a testament to the strength of the story – and the film’s sense of humour – that we can suspend our disbelief and accept this mixture of silly and serious. Cars getting squashed with giant cartoon boulders, catapults full of anvils being flung at people, rocket-powered roller skates… I mean, it’s classic Looney Tunes wackiness right next to this courtroom drama about a corporation conducting dangerous experiments and a small law firm at risk of bankruptcy. Yet somehow… it works.
Although the focus remained on Wile E. Coyote, I felt that the film made good use of other Looney Tunes characters. Bugs Bunny got a turn as an informant – and given his scene-stealing abilities and overall popularity, using him sparingly was a good call. Tweety Bird and his owner got a really creative story about being threatened by Acme, with her husband being the scientist who created many of Acme’s products. And Foghorn Leghorn being parachuted in as Acme’s CEO was hilarious, too – the role genuinely seemed to suit him.
It’s also worth noting, sadly, that Coyote vs. Acme is one of the final film roles for the late Eric Bauza, who passed away just last month. Bauza voiced many of the Looney Tunes characters in the film.
John Cena’s villainous lawyer was pretty one-dimensional, but Cena breathed life into him through a delightfully over-the-top performance. There was just enough realism in the way the lawyer came across to get me to buy into his status, his role, and his one-sided feud with Kevin. I haven’t always been a huge John Cena fan when I’ve seen him in other productions, but here, I felt he was well-cast and his character stuck the landing.
In terms of the film’s visual effects and imagery, I really liked what I saw. Cartoon characters retained their original hand-drawn 2D style, but the 3D models could be filmed from all angles, and the cartoon characters genuinely felt like they could occupy three-dimensional space. There were no obvious visual glitches or issues with human performers interacting with cartoon characters or cartoon objects, and all of the cartoon artefacts created for the film felt like they had sufficient weight and presence to sell the illusion that they were real pieces of this world.
So… I had fun with Coyote vs. Acme, as you can tell!
You have to set appropriate expectations for… well, for any film, really. If you’ve just watched something like The Odyssey and you’re expecting a blockbuster with comparable stakes and storytelling that takes itself completely seriously… this ain’t that. But if you’re down for a fun cartoony romp that has a little more to say than a standard Looney Tunes short, then Coyote vs. Acme excels. It knows exactly what kind of film it wants to be, how it wants to use its core premise and its new and familiar characters, and it goes for it in a way that’s both earnest and just plain *fun*. I think I laughed more watching Coyote vs. Acme than I have with anything else I’ve seen in months – there were so many laugh-out-loud gags and little comedic moments from beginning to end.
I was happy to pay a little extra to watch the film digitally, but if you wait just a little longer, it’ll probably come to HBO Max/Max/whatever the streaming service will be called now that it’s owned by Skydance sometime soon. A DVD/Blu-ray release is also planned, so watch this space.
Thanks for joining me for this review. I hope it’s been interesting! I genuinely can’t remember the first time I watched Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner; like a lot of folks, Looney Tunes, Merrie Melodies, and their characters have been part of my life as a viewer for as long as I’ve been watching films and TV, I guess. But this take on the characters was fun and something a bit different. I’m glad I was able to watch Coyote vs. Acme – and I’m glad that the former Warner Bros.-Discovery corporation was persuaded to let the film see the light of day.
Coyote vs. Acme is available to purchase or rent now via on-demand platforms like Apple TV, Amazon Video, and the Sky Store. Coyote vs. Acme is the copyright of the Skydance Corporation, Warner Bros. Pictures, Warner Bros. Animation, and/or Ketchup Films. This review contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.
