‘Coyote Vs. Acme’ Gives Plenty of Laughs and Another Reason to Hate Giant Corporations (Not that You Needed Another)

To fully understand why I loved Coyote vs. Acme, we first need to talk about the aggressively weird situation with the movie’s distribution. If you are not familiar with the sordid story, this movie was filmed and finalized back in 2023, three whole years ago. And because Warner Bros. hates all things animations, evidenced by their treatment of Infinity Train and Adult Swim, they decided to add the film to, if I may borrow the phrase from John Oliver, “a series of tax write-offs to appease Wall Street.” I do not pretend to understand the complex undertaking that is running a multimedia empire, but I also do not have to care about it except insofar as I am a consumer of all things multimedia and not being able to watch what sounds like an incredible movie because it not being released somehow generated more income for a company with already far too much money kind of makes me upset. And what’s even more frustrating is that this isn’t even the first Looney Tunes movie to experience this treatment as The Day the Earth Blew Up also went through a similar arc of nearly vanishing into a mysterious vault before Ketchup Entertainment managed to save it from the scrap heap and thankfully, that success set them up to save Coyote vs. Acme. And now, we get to see a coyote demonstrate the definition of insanity, which is to say the same thing over and over expecting different results.

So to fully understand why I loved Coyote vs. Acme, we first need to talk about Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, a movie that is three years older than I am, but it is still a film I rely on as a cultural touchstone. Who Frame Roger Rabbit? was a unique confluence of a film. A blend of traditional animation and live action, it took film noir elements and twisted and contorted them to fit in an imagined world of Hollywood where toons were actual entities with agency that coexisted with humans. Bob Hoskins played jaded detective Eddie Valiant, who gets hired for a stock affair case only to get involved in a much convoluted plot that impacted both humans and toons. It was also notable as one of the few times that the Disney pantheon and Looney Tunes pantheon shared screen time (and crucially, had the same minutes of screentime per agreement). While not the first (it looks like that distinction belongs to Gertie the Dinosaur in 1941) or last movie to blend genre and medium (looking at you Space Jam, every other Spongebob Squarepants film, The Lego Movie…), it is still one of the most recognizable and one of the most beloved. It came during the Golden Age of Animation, and was a clear labor of love, and the critical reception and financial gain was obvious and immediate. It’s telling that even though it was as beloved, production companies weren’t jumping to make the same thing over and over and over again, because trying to capture this exact bottle of lightning was a Herculean task.

So to fully understand why I loved Coyote vs. Acme, we first need to talk about law procedurals. Procedurals are, funny enough, a solved problem. Much like its sibling, the cop/investigative procedurals, law procedurals have a well-defined frame. A victim hires a lawyer out of their depth. Lawyer manages to navigate trial and tribulation. Court room shenanigans ensue. A verdict comes down. Aftermath occurs. The world is forever changed. There’s a reason why Law & Order has been running for so many years, and why shows like Suits, The Good Wife, and The Good Fight remain popular long after their series finales aired, why we’re still getting new law procedurals whether that’s USA’s The Rainmaker or CBS’s forthcoming Cupertino, and why I’m patiently waiting for The Lincoln Lawyer‘s final season given how rarely shows get to end on their own terms. With the skeleton so articulated, what distinguishes the stories telling the same story over and over again, is the casting, the cleverness, and the emotional heart they try to bare.

I loved Coyote vs. Acme because of all of these disparate things. I love that it is a story about the little guy fighting a giant corporation for making terrible products in a day and age characterized by rampant generative AI-enabled products. I love that it is a love letter to traditional animation and tradition. That you can see the care they put into incorporating the past Looney Tunes shorts and remixing the familiar elements with more modern ones. I love that it knows it’s a law procedural and focuses on making Will Forte affable and John Cena comically evil. I love that Wile E. Coyote isn’t the perfect defendant. I love that Lana Condor plays the wide optimistic intern. I love how the toons feel like a fully incorporated part of the world. I love this movie because this is a movie that knew exactly what it wanted to be and what it wanted to tell, and it told the story at an exceptionally high level.

I had the very odd experience of seeing this movie in a theater that was specifically designed for children, which was an odd choice given that the Paw Patrol movie was playing in the regular theater opposite of this, but the majority of the moviegoers that evening were my age, and even a few that skewed even older. Everyone laughed at different times for different times, and while I think kids will appreciate the movie for being silly and slapstick, this is a movie that first and foremost is a love letter to the people who grew up watching Wile E. chase the Roadrunner and never managing to catch his prey. And it’s a love letter that I appreciate even more knowing how much effort it took to get this film to even be in a theater in the first place.

You may have seen a viral post where Coyote vs. Acme debuted at 101% on Rotten Tomatoes.

Know that’s only because I didn’t get a chance to see it earlier, otherwise it would have debuted at 102%.

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