Okay, this movie was actually pretty damn funny.
I went into Coyote vs. Acme with reasonably high expectations. Part of that was because of all the drama surrounding the movie’s release, but mostly because I grew up watching Looney Tunes and the basic premise sounded like something that should have been done years ago. Wile E. Coyote finally getting sick of ACME’s defective bullshit and suing them? How do you screw that up?
Thankfully, they didn’t.
The premise is pretty simple. After decades of rockets exploding in his face, giant slingshots backfiring, anvils falling on him, and God knows how many other workplace safety violations, Wile E. Coyote decides that he’s finally had enough of ACME. He hires struggling personal injury lawyer Kevin Avery, played by Will Forte, to sue the giant corporation responsible for selling him all of the defective crap he’s used trying to catch the Road Runner. Kevin initially isn’t thrilled about taking the case, but his niece and intern Paige convinces him that Wile E. might actually have a legitimate claim. Standing in their way is ACME’s slick attorney Buddy Crane, played by John Cena, along with the enormous corporation backing him. Kevin and Wile E. begin digging into ACME’s history while trying to prove that the company knew its products were dangerous. Naturally, because this is Looney Tunes, their investigation involves a lot more explosions, falling objects, cartoon violence, and general physical abuse than your average civil lawsuit.
Now, you probably already know about all the hullabaloo surrounding this movie’s release.
Coyote vs. Acme was finished and originally supposed to come out in 2023, only for Warner Bros. Discovery to shelve the completed movie and announce that they were taking a tax write-off on it instead. Word got out, and the internet started campaigning for the movie to be released. Warner eventually backed off enough to allow the film to be shopped around, and after sitting in limbo for a ridiculous amount of time, Ketchup Entertainment bought the worldwide rights. The movie finally hit theaters in August 2026.
Yeah, I really don’t see why this movie wasn’t released in the first place. It’s actually really good.
Before I get too deep into anything else, I need to talk about Will Forte because I absolutely love this man. I wasn’t terribly familiar with him until I watched The Last Man on Earth, and from there it was love at first sight. I’ve never seen a bad Will Forte performance, even when he’s stuck in an objectively bad movie. The Brothers Solomon had Forte starring alongside the equally great Will Arnett and still somehow managed to suck, but Forte himself was funny in it (and Arnett too, of course).
His delivery is always perfect no matter what kind of character he’s playing. He has this ability to play somebody completely ridiculous while still taking the character seriously enough that the joke works. If I ever somehow wind up making a comedy movie, I’m finding a part for Will Forte even if I have to make one up specifically for him.
His performance as Wile E. Coyote’s lawyer is just as strong as ever. Kevin Avery is a sad-sack ambulance chaser sharing scenes with animated animals, yet Forte somehow fits perfectly into that world. If there’s any comedic actor who can keep pace with the Looney Tunes without getting completely swallowed up by them, it’s Will Forte.
It probably sounds like I’m glazing Will Forte.
That’s because I am. He’s great.
Wile E. himself is also handled almost perfectly. Having him communicate entirely through signs was fucking hilarious. I guess I wasn’t expecting him to suddenly start speaking fluent English or anything, but I also hadn’t considered how they were going to handle an entire movie where one of the main characters doesn’t talk. As it turns out, the solution was to give the coyote a never-ending supply of signs that he can pull out whenever he needs to communicate, and somehow the gag never wore out its welcome.
The movie is also full of clever little references, some of which the average person may or may not pick up on.
For example, Kevin works for the law firm Avery, Jones & Maltese, a reference to Tex Avery, Chuck Jones, and Michael Maltese, three giants of classic Warner Bros. animation. You could easily watch the entire movie without noticing it, which is exactly how references like this should work. Fans get the joke, everyone else keeps watching.
There’s also a quick news broadcast mentioning a mouse breaking the sound barrier in Guadalajara, which is obviously a nod to Speedy Gonzales. It’s such a stupid little background joke, but I loved it. I hope nobody decides to try canceling Speedy again because some offended white people have decided that Mexicans need them to be offended on their behalf. Señor Juan will attest that Mexicans fucking love Speedy Gonzales. Leave the mouse alone, gringos.
They even found something to do with Pepé Le Pew.
At one point the movie shows off an “anti-predator spray,” and poor Pepé ends up being the test subject. That definitely got a chuckle out of me. I’m glad they found another role for Pepé besides chasing poon around France. Controversy aside, I’ve never cared that much for the character anyway, so turning his entire reputation into a quick predator joke probably got the biggest laugh out of me that Pepé Le Pew has ever managed.
What surprised me most though was that Coyote vs. Acme actually made me think differently about Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner.
The end of the movie explores their relationship from the Road Runner’s perspective and reframes their endless chase as something closer to two friends messing around with each other. The Road Runner doesn’t seem to view Wile E. as some mortal enemy trying to murder him. This is just what these two do.
When you stop and think about the old cartoons, it actually makes a lot of sense.
Wile E. blows himself up, falls off a cliff, gets launched through a mountain, or otherwise nearly kills himself, and what does the Road Runner usually do? He comes back.
Meep meep.
For all these years I assumed the little bastard was mocking him. After this movie, you could just as easily interpret it as the Road Runner coming back to make sure his friend is still alive after whatever catastrophic accident he just witnessed. Wile E. is going to recover, order another rocket from ACME, and they’ll do the entire thing again tomorrow.
I’ll never watch one of those old cartoons quite the same way again.
That’s probably the biggest compliment I can give Coyote vs. Acme. It understands these characters well enough to add something to them without screwing up what made them work in the first place.
The Looney Tunes are timeless, even if younger generations don’t seem to care about them nearly as much as they should. I used to work with a 21-year-old girl who legitimately didn’t know who Bugs Bunny was.
How the actual fuck do you not know who Bugs Bunny is? That should be part of basic cultural literacy. You should have to identify Bugs Bunny before they let you graduate high school.
After watching Coyote vs. Acme, I can’t help but wonder if Warner Bros. shelving the movie was somehow the greatest unintentional marketing campaign ever devised. I know the whole mess was real, but it almost feels too perfect. The movie is literally about a little guy fighting a giant corporation that screwed him over, then the giant corporation that owned the movie tried to bury it for financial reasons and accidentally caused a public campaign to save it. You couldn’t have scripted that any better.
I just don’t understand how anyone watched the finished product and concluded that it wasn’t worth releasing. There are plenty of terrible movies that deserve to be buried. Studios dump garbage onto streaming services every week that looks like it was assembled during somebody’s lunch break. Yet somehow this was the movie that needed to disappear forever for accounting purposes?
What the fuck were they watching?
Coyote vs. Acme is funny, charming, loaded with references for longtime fans, and respectful of the characters without treating them like sacred museum pieces. Will Forte is great, Wile E. Coyote is great, and even the Road Runner manages to get a little bit of character development after spending 75 years saying two words and hauling ass through the desert.
This is a great addition to the Looney Tunes legacy, and if you haven’t seen it yet, you should definitely check it out. Younger viewers can enjoy the cartoon violence and ridiculous slapstick, while older fans will catch all the references and probably walk away appreciating Wile E. Coyote a little more than they did going in.
Not bad for a movie that almost ended up locked in a vault forever.
AJ’s rating: 8/10
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