Director: Dave Green
Cast: Will Forte, Lana Condor, Tone Bell, Luis Guzman, Martha Kelly, P.J. Byrne, Eric Bauza, Kenneth Choi, Candi Milo, Jim Cummings, John Cena
Screenplay: Samy Burch
103 mins. Rated PG for cartoon violence and some language.

I don’t know what Warner Bros. was thinking when they greenlit Coyote vs. ACME. As unfortunate as it is, Looney Tunes does not have the same standing that it did a few decades ago, and WB had to know that this film was perhaps not destined for a big box office. I applaud them, however, for allowing such a clever idea to take shape and come forth, somehow making what might just be the best Looney Tunes movie ever. Unfortunately, they gave up on Coyote vs. ACME, which is a shame, but it’s now been rescued by the folks over at Ketchup Entertainment (who also saved the delightful The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie from a few years back), which is great news for this fan, as Coyote vs. ACME is both a hilarious send-up of corporate espionage and courtroom drama subgenres while simultaneously being a takedown of dangerous corporate entities who have too much power and too much protection…cough, cough…anyone catching a weird coincidence?

After decades of trying and failing to catch the Roadrunner, Wile E. Coyote has run out of ideas. That is, until he sees an ad for a law firm that deals directly with ACME’s defective products and decides to sue them for the years of pain and emotional damage. He enlists attorney Kevin Avery (Will Forte, The LEGO Movie) and the two join forces to take down the biggest corporation in the world, but ACME’s legal defense team, led by Kevin’s rival Buddy Crane (John Cena, Barbie), are ready to brawl (in a legal sense) and ruin the fledgling law office of Avery, Jones & Maltese. To make matters worse, the star witness, the Roadrunner, has proved rather difficult to track down.

The central concept of Coyote vs. ACME is so simple it’s shocking that it hasn’t been done yet. The film is adapted from a New Yorker article that skewered corrupt corporations back in 1990 by humorously placing Wile E. Coyote at the center of a liability lawsuit. Naturally, the material had to be altered to fit the established world of Looney Tunes, but the heart and soul is still the same. Coyote is far from the most capable of hunters, but ACME is certainly not helping, and the way screenwriter Samy Burch (May December) plays with genre form by working the corporate conspiracy angle with a traditional courtroom drama and then pressing the Looney Tunes style through it all works wonders and never loses the inherent comedy of the situation. It also doesn’t downplay the serious approach to the film and celebrates characters like Wile E. Coyote who never give up and keep on moving forward, even if his progress is measured in millimeters. Burch’s screenplay plays with big ideas but it’s never downplaying or dumbing them down for the general audience of “younger” minds. Instead, Burch is focused on the story of large corporations taking advantage of the little guys and rich people in power pitting coyotes and roadrunners against each other so they never realize there’s a more important shared enemy at the center. Thank goodness we don’t have those problems in America…right?

This all sounds rather serious, but make no mistake, this is a Looney Tunes tale at the core, just one that cleverly subverts the established ideas of these characters in a satisfying and often quite way. It’s mixture of human and animated characters is closer to Looney Tunes: Back in Action over the heavily-animated world of Space Jam, but the casting of Forte in the lead and very much the addition of John Cena as the antagonist feel so natural to the environment. Forte matches Coyote’s energy quite well while also having to do a lot of the plot progression given that Coyote doesn’t really speak much. John Cena needs to reappear in future Looney Tunes films as he just slides into character so well. Cena has been quietly picking the right projects and doing the hard work to finding his voice as an actor, and he’s just perfect here. There’s a conversation between Buddy and Tweety Bird that is one of the funniest scenes of this or any decade, and Cena’s just committed. He’s easily becoming my favorite wrestler-turned-actor because when he has a director who understands his skill set, he’s a marvel.

Coyote vs. ACME has no reason to be this good, which makes it all the more frustrating that we almost didn’t get to see it. The suits at WB made a big deal about crafting high-quality movies and then shelf films like this. Samy Burch’s screenplay combined with strong comedic talents and a story that is both thoughtful and hilarious in equal measure. If anything, it could stand to trim a few minutes from its third act, but I’d hate to cut anything. I’m so thankful for the team behind this, including director Dave Green (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows), and also to Ketchup Entertainment for rescuing this absolute gem from the tax heap. It’s not just a worthwhile piece of comedic art, but it’s very much the best Looney Tunes movie yet. Let’s hope there will be more.

4/5
-Kyle A. Goethe