‘Coyote vs. Acme’ is the summer’s best movie

Are Daffy Duck’s days numbered? Is Porky Pig packing it in? Wither the Wascally Wabbit?As inconceivable as it will sound to anyone over the age of 40, the Looney Tunes characters do not have the cachet they once did. Or, at least, the studio under which they formerly flourished and which still owns their rights — Warner Bros. Discovery — behaves as though they no longer do.Since the turn of the millennium, the studio has deigned to release to theaters just two feature-length animated cartoons with the iconic cast: Joe Dante’s agreeably clever Looney Tunes: Back in Action (2003) and, nearly 20 years later, the unfathomably bad Space Jam: A New Legacy (2021). When neither movie generated box-office revenue comparable to starring vehicles for, say, Shrek, Nemo, or the Minions, Warner Bros. essentially admitted defeat when it came to theatrical Looney Tunes movies. Will Forte and Wile E. Coyote in “Coyote vs. Acme.” (Ketchup Entertainment) In 2025, Warner Bros. shifted distribution responsibilities of its reasonably fun feature The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie to an outfit known as Ketchup Entertainment, which released the movie to middling returns. And this year, the studio tapped the same company to bring out its long-delayed live-action/animation hybrid film Coyote vs. Acme — a far more expensive venture drawn from quite distinguished source material, Ian Frazier’s 1990 New Yorker magazine short story, “Coyote v. Acme.” This can be regarded as a tiny miracle since, for several years, Warner Bros. was content to consign the movie, though financed and finished by the studio, to the ranks of the unreleased for tax write-off purposes.This saga has the quality of a self-fulfilling prophecy: failing, over a span of many years, to ballyhoo Bugs, Daffy, and Porky properly to new generations of audiences, of course the studio’s few Looney Tunes movies were fated to struggle in theaters — as has Coyote vs. Acme, which is doing so-so business but is unlikely to break any records.That’s a shame because Coyote vs. Acme is one of the most fantastically fresh and genuinely amusing Hollywood movies of the year — and the best of the summer. Like Frazier’s original story, the movie concocts a mad but internally logical alternate universe. Exasperated by years of unsuccessfully tracking down Road Runner, Wile E. Coyote develops sufficient reasoning power to reckon that some of his difficulties may be due to the perennially unreliable products brought to market by the malign Acme Corporation.For example, one early scene shows Wile E. outfitting himself in Acme’s rocket skates, which theoretically should permit the coyote to keep pace with Road Runner. Instead, they malfunction in such a way as first to cause Wile E. to barely move at all and then propel him in a directionless blur that results in a confrontation with a windmill. These gags will be familiar to viewers of vintage Looney Tunes cartoons — excerpts of which are, amusingly, presented as flashbacks of the bloodshot, increasingly dentally challenged coyote — but they are merely a preamble to what follows.Quite by accident, Wile E. takes notice of a television advertisement for the law firm of Avery, Jones & Maltese, some of whose names suspiciously call to mind Looney Tunes animators Tex Avery and Chuck Jones and writer Michael Maltese, and whose specialty is pathetically low settlements from the Acme Corporation for injured cartoon characters. “It’s not your fault,” says attorney Kevin Avery (Will Forte), adopting the patois of personal injury lawyers everywhere. “There’s probably someone to blame.” This is not the healthiest attitude in a litigious society such as ours, but in the case of Acme, it appears to be reasonably accurate. At least the firm knows its clientele: Upon calling, prospective clients are advised to press “3” if they have been crushed by a falling piano.Eventually, Wile E. harangues the lazy, risk-averse Avery into filing a mega lawsuit for the decades during which he made use of Acme merchandise, which not only resulted in bodily injury but also brought him no closer to nabbing Road Runner. Acme has placed its defense in the hands of attorney Buddy Crane (John Cena), a brash, backslapping type who turns meek and mild in the presence of Acme head honcho Foghorn Leghorn (voiced, as is most of the Looney Tunes cast, by Eric Bauza). “I say, I say, I heard we have a lawsuit,” says Foghorn, a rooster of unusual proportions. In the course of preparing the case, Avery finds that Acme has, in fact, been refining wonky products intended for the human marketplace on unwitting cartoon test subjects, including Wile E. That our coyote hero has been crushed, incinerated, or otherwise imperiled in the process is of no consequence to the higher-ups.Avery and his associate Paige Avery (Lana Condor) are taken on numerous clever detours, including a trip to Scary Road Drive at the behest of an anonymous caller who sounds like a noted carrot-chomping rabbit. The movie makes ample use of Looney Tunes mythology, and it is refreshing how unafraid it is of references that may appear dated. (One of the Acme scientists who objects to the corporation’s mistreatment of its toons is patterned on the actor Peter Lorre.) Meanwhile, Wile E. appears less interested in prevailing in court (and, eventually, at a congressional hearing) than conspiring to get himself in the same room as Road Runner, touted as a star witness. “I envy you, really,” Avery says to Wile E. at one point. “It might be nice to have such a clear goal.”REVIEW: ‘TONY’ IS AN ANNOYING, UNIMPRESSIVE BIOPIC OF ANTHONY BOURDAINThe movie itself avoids being monotonously one-note due to the consistently engaging underplaying of Forte, a Saturday Night Live veteran of considerable low-key appeal in his few leading man-style roles, especially as the good-natured playwright in Peter Bogdanovich’s neglected showbiz farce, She’s Funny That Way (2014). Forte is simply never not funny. He’s as amusing when he addresses the Tasmanian Devil on the witness stand as “Mr. Devil” as when he later lapses into Looney Tunes-style speak when he says “pwoducts” rather than “products.” The animation has the patina of old-school Looney Tunes cartoons, and every scene involving human-cartoon interaction, which is most of them, is flawlessly directed by Dave Green. (The screenplay is credited to Samy Burch from a screen story by James Gunn, Jeremy Slater, and Burch.)Throughout, I admit that I remained wary of the movie’s unshakeable anti-corporate, pro-litigation stance. In fact, the Acme Corporation did have a reasonable defense: Not only are cartoon characters incapable of experiencing permanent injury — as, I believe, was pointed out by Foghorn Leghorn — but, more importantly, Acme was doing a public good by providing such characters with faulty goods because such defective wares were essential to the sustenance of the cartoon industry itself. A cartoon world without malfunctioning TNT would be unworthy of the name. Perhaps Warner Bros. can finally get with the program and make a sequel to Coyote vs. Acme: How about Elmer Fudd, seen here as a skeptical senator, speaking up for tort reform?Peter Tonguette is the Life & Arts editor of the Washington Examiner magazine.