Directed by: David Green
Starring: Will Forte, John Cena, Lana Condor
Coyote vs. Acme's production and release history overshadows the movie itself. It was produced and then shelved and then bought out by another production company and is now in theaters. It is a comedy in the spirit of Who Framed Roger Rabbit in which animation is successfully merged with live actors. This time it's the beloved Looney Tunes characters with Wile E. Coyote taking center stage after years of fruitlessly chasing the Road Runner and continually coming up empty.
Mr. Coyote uses Acme products and they all fail him. He's flattened, crushed, exploded, and everything else that could befall a cartoon character, but he keeps plugging away and ordering more Acme products. One day, in desperation, he sees an ad on television for Albuquerque attorney Kevin Avery of the firm Avery, Jones, and Maltese (a nod to the Looney Tunes creators) who sues Acme regularly and nets his clients tens of dollars. Kevin settles quickly for little money and claims enough settlements to keep advertising to cartoon characters victimized by defective Acme products. Wile E. Coyote hires Kevin, but doesn't want to settle for anything less than millions of dollars.
This terrifies Kevin, who isn't used to big money trials and is even more afraid of his former friend and now Acme's lead attorney Buddy Crane (Cena), who uses his power to intimidate Kevin and continually remind him of past failures. Kevin is aided by his niece assistant (Condor), who wants to help her uncle win and discover his true self. Coyote vs. Acme isn't simply a courtroom comedy, but it has heart and a touching view into the nature of Wile E. Coyote's frenemy relationship with Road Runner. The Looney Tunes carry a lot of goodwill with me. (I even liked last year's The Day the Earth Blew Up) and it's great to see not just the Coyote and Road Runner, but Foghorn Leghorn as the blustering CEO of Acme and even Bugs Bunny. There is even Peter Lorre as Dr. Lorre, who worked at Acme years ago and disappeared into a cartoon hole. Coyote vs. Acme doesn't want to leave anything, or anyone out, and the results are surprisingly and genuinely heartfelt.
