The Looney Tunes Movie Was Worth Saving

There is something almost impossibly fitting about the journey of Coyote vs. Acme. A movie centered around Wile E. Coyote, a character defined by getting flattened, blown up, dropped off cliffs and somehow coming back for another try, was itself nearly erased from existence before finding a way back.

Thankfully, it did.

Coyote vs. Acme isn’t just the curiosity many expected after years of headlines surrounding its shelving. It’s a genuinely funny, surprisingly heartfelt celebration of the Looney Tunes that understands exactly why these characters have survived for generations.

Directed by Dave Green, the film takes one of the simplest running jokes in animation history and asks a question that suddenly seems completely reasonable: After decades of defective rockets, exploding bird seed, malfunctioning traps and other catastrophically unreliable products, why hasn’t Wile E. Coyote sued ACME?

That’s exactly what he does.

Wile E. teams with struggling attorney Kevin Avery, played by Will Forte, to take ACME Corporation to court over the company’s long history of products that have repeatedly exploded in his face. Standing on the other side is ACME’s powerful attorney Buddy Crane, played with exactly the kind of exaggerated confidence you’d expect from John Cena.

It’s a ridiculous premise, but the movie commits to it.

Rather than simply using the Looney Tunes characters as decoration around another live action story, Coyote vs. Acmemanages to bring their world into ours without stripping away what makes it special. Cartoon logic still applies. Explosions happen. Characters survive things no living creature possibly could. Elaborate contraptions go spectacularly wrong.

Most importantly, it actually feels like Looney Tunes.

That has been one of the biggest challenges for previous attempts to bring these characters into live action. Here, the filmmakers aren’t embarrassed by the absurdity. They embrace it.

Forte proves to be an ideal human counterpart for Wile E. Coyote. His comedic style has always worked best when playing characters who are slightly desperate, slightly defeated and somehow still convinced things might eventually work out. Pairing him with perhaps the most relentlessly unsuccessful character in animation history turns out to be a perfect match.

Cena is having even more fun. His ability to completely commit to absurd comedy has become one of his greatest strengths as an actor, and Coyote vs. Acme gives him plenty of opportunities to lean into it.

But Wile E. remains the star.

For a character who barely needs words, the movie finds an impressive amount of emotion underneath the slapstick. His endless pursuit of the Road Runner has always been funny because he refuses to quit. Here, that stubbornness becomes something unexpectedly meaningful.

The movie even manages to find a little heart inside all the falling anvils and exploding rockets.

That doesn’t mean everything lands perfectly. Some of the human material isn’t as entertaining as the animated chaos surrounding it, and there are stretches where the courtroom story slows down the manic Looney Tunes energy. Not every joke hits, either.

But the misses rarely linger because another gag is usually seconds away.

Early critical reaction has been overwhelmingly positive, and it’s easy to understand why. The Hollywood Reporter called the movie a “hilarious delight,” while praising it as one of the best combinations of live action and animation. Variety highlighted the movie’s ability to pack Road Runner style destruction, references and Looney Tunes Easter eggs into its courtroom comedy. Deadline went even further, comparing the film favorably to Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

Those are lofty comparisons, and Coyote vs. Acme doesn’t quite reach the all time greatness of Roger Rabbit. But the fact that the comparison doesn’t feel completely ridiculous says plenty about how well this movie works.

John Cena, Coyote vs Acme [credit: Warner Bros. Pictures]

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There’s also an unavoidable layer of irony surrounding the entire story.

Warner Bros. Discovery originally planned to shelve the completed film, turning it into one of Hollywood’s most controversial examples of finished projects being abandoned for financial reasons. After enormous backlash from filmmakers, actors and fans, the movie eventually escaped that fate and found a new home with Ketchup Entertainment.

That history makes the movie’s story about a powerless individual taking on an enormous corporation almost comically appropriate.

You couldn’t write a better marketing campaign.

More importantly, audiences now get the opportunity to decide whether the movie deserved to survive.

It did.

Coyote vs. Acme isn’t revolutionary, and it doesn’t need to be. It’s funny, charming, energetic and clearly made by people who genuinely love these characters. Instead of attempting to reinvent the Looney Tunes for modern audiences, it remembers that great characters don’t always need reinventing.

Sometimes you just need to give Wile E. Coyote another rocket, point him toward the Road Runner and get out of the way.

After everything Coyote vs. Acme went through just to reach a theater screen, perhaps there was never a more appropriate movie to prove that getting knocked down doesn’t mean you’re finished.