Lawyers, Puns, and Bunnies: Film Review of Coyote -vs- Acme
★★★1/2
Illustration by Michael DiMilo
By Geoff Carter
As early as 1919, animation pioneer Max Fleischer was experimenting with combining live-action film with his cartoon creations, culminating in his groundbreaking Koko the Clown films. In the 1920s, Walt Disney produced the Alice Comedies in which Alice, a live actress, was deposited into a cartoon world. In 1945, Gene Kelly performed a dance routine with Jerry the mouse of Tom and Jerry fame. Of course, in more recent times, Mary Poppins, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, and Space Jam have stretched the boundaries of this hybrid genre of twin coexistent realities.
Instead of simply using this technology as a gimmick to attract viewers (as in Anchors Aweigh), Who Framed Roger Rabbit? used it as an engine to drive the narrative of “toons”, an abused population segregated from the culture of live-action characters, living in Toon Town, an animated cartoon ghetto.
Coyote -vs- Acme is the latest—and slickest—entry into this rather odd subgenre. Like Space Jam, Coyote uses the cartoon cast of the Looney Tunes cavalcade of characters, and, like Roger Rabbit, it explores twin worlds of cartoon characters and human reality, using tongue-in-cheek satire to examine issues of corporate hegemony, elitism, and consumer protections.
The film begins with a flashback of an animated Dr. Lorre—the animated Peter Lorre as seen in some Looney Tunes shorts like 1941’s Hollywood Steps Out—in 1992. Working as a research scientist for the ACME corporation, Lorre attempts to leak as message about the evil doings of ACME but is caught and imprisoned in a portable cartoon hole.
The film cuts to present day as we see Wile E. Coyote still fruitlessly attempting to capture the elusive Roadrunner. He is hit by a truck (an ACME truck), pursued by a jet fighter, blown up by a missile, and is—believe it or not—abused even more. Exhausted and frustrated, he returns to his cave full of ACME gadgets and elaborate plans where he overhears lawyer Kevin Avery (Will Forte) specializing in cartoon violence cases on a TV commercial. Inspired, the coyote decides to travel to Albuquerque and hire him to sue ACME.
Avery (named as a tribute to famous cartoonist Tex Avery?) makes a living negotiating paltry personal injury settlements for his cartoon clients with ACME, and is content to eke out a living without trying too hard. When Wile E. comes in to hire him, Avery tells him he’ll get him a couple of hundred dollars for his case. Dissatisfied with this approach, the coyote manages to alter the brief sent to Buddy Crane (John Cena), ACME’s high-powered lawyer, to include every product manufactured by the company.
After unsuccessfully trying to weasel out of the suit—and after Coyote burns a substantial settlement check—Avery decides to take the case seriously and bring justice to a legion of cartoon characters who have suffered abuse at the hands of ACME’s mysterious Project Sisyphus. He puts up Mr. Coyote, who relentlessly—and hilariously—builds, alters, and designs his ridiculously elaborate inventions in the motel room next door to him, and somehow a friendship slowly blooms between them.
Aided by a whistleblower that looks suspiciously like Bugs Bunny, Avery and his idealistic intern Paige (Lana Condor), eventually are able to bring Wile E. Coyote’s case in front of a congressional committee, but when ACME’s CEO, Foghorn Leghorn, testifies, things look bleak for this particular legal team.
Coyote -vs- ACME is a wonderfully entertaining thrill ride, combining the fantastic and sometimes surreal slapstick of the Looney Tunes brand with a healthy dose of adult humor and social satire. This film in many ways resonates with the same vibe as the film Barbie, and in many ways, shares similar plot points. A denizen of an alternative universe (Barbie Land or Looney Tunes) is drawn into the world of human reality where he (or she) interacts with the norms and laws of our society to find justice or gain insights or attain self-discovery.
Barbie discovers the unfairness of the female hegemony in her kingdom—as Ken usurps it—while the coyote, and Avery, shelve their own selfish desires in the interests of justice. Whether this similarity is coincidental, the sincerest form of flattery, or an affirmation of cultural norms is hard to say, but the results are two great popcorn movies with deeply layered messaging.
Sammy Burch and other contributors to the screenplay loosely based the movie on Ian Frazier’s 1990 New Yorkerpiece “Coyote -vs- Acme”, a parody of the legal system using Coyote’s decision to sue ACME. After over twenty years of development, shelving, and revitalization, finally become a movie. Legal difficulties surrounding the inclusion of favorites like Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck slowed development to a crawl, but the final product was definitely worth waiting for.
On the animated side of things, the “casting” of the cartoon characters was nothing short of brilliant. Daffy Duck as a former test subject driven mad by his experiences, Bugs Bunny as a worldly and shrewd whistleblower, Foghorn Leghorn as a pompous corporate CEO blowhard, and Tweety and Granny as victims of corporate blackmail is brilliant casting. Because these characters are so familiar, audience expectations are affirmed. It’s reassuring to see the characters we grew up with as solid as ever. The film digs a little more deeply into Wile E. Coyote’s character. He is not just the obsessed mad inventor we see in the cartoons, but he is an incredibly determined, hard-working, and brilliant creature—although not perfect.
The real-life cast is just as solid. As Avery, Will Forte is the perfect personification of the lovable loser. Lazy, insecure, self-effacing, always determined to find the easiest way out, Forte’s feckless attorney is sort of a cross between Saul Goodman and Sad Sack.
John Cena’s portrayal of Buddy Crane is the polar opposite to Avery. Suave, smart, handsome, and big, his presence overpowers Avery at every turn. Cena pulls off Crane’s sly and smarmy attitude with a perfect comic aplomb.
While the Looney Tune sensibility of a cartoon rockets, explosions, elaborate traps, portable holes, and other surreal visual transformations (see post-explosion effects) are as highly entertaining as they were in the original cartoons, the twist on the Project Sisyphus plot lends a more serious tone to the movie. The dangers of unfettered corporate power and its dedication to the bottom line is highlighted here; ACME is not just the cartoon villain in the film, it is malignant presence disrupting the quality of every toon’s existence that will stop at nothing, including kidnapping or murder, to protect its bottom line. And when the purpose of Project Sisyphus, when it is finally revealed, resonates with real world aspects of the cruelty of animal testing.
Coyote -vs- Acme is a vastly entertaining film but also stretches the envelope of this hybrid genre. Funny, clever, compassionate, and surprisingly socially conscious, this is an outstanding film well worth seeing, combining entertainment with intelligent writing, cutting satire, and social awareness.
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