Coyote vs. Acme<\/em> is as simple as it is genuinely fascinating: After so many decades of trying and failing to capture the Road Runner with defective products, does Wile E. Coyote have grounds for a lawsuit against the Acme Corporation?<\/p>\n\n\n\n(NOTE: I am not a lawyer. I have never been a lawyer. I’ve never even applied to law school. I am no expert in this field.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On the one hand, it would be difficult for Wile E. to claim any kind of personal injury, given all the countless times and ways he’s been injured only to show up without a scratch two seconds later. On the other hand, there’s an argument to be made that Acme owes Wile E. a massive goddamn refund for all the defective products they’ve sold him over the years. I might add that given the repeated pattern of so many failed products over so many decades, there’s probably a case to be made for some kind of criminal neglect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Granted, one could understand why Acme would want to distance themselves from a psychopathic coyote trying to use their goods and services in the pursuit of killing a bird. Nevertheless, the point stands that they have repeatedly sold him their products all the same. And if they sell dynamite with the promise that the dynamite will blow up, but it’s the detonator that blows up while the dynamite remains perfectly intact, it’s pretty hard to make an argument for how that happened on account of user error. Multiple times. Over 75 years and counting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But there’s another factor to consider: Road Runner. If you’re looking for a witness to corroborate Wile E. and his stories of failure, the bird in question is pretty much your only option. Then again, why would the Road Runner want to be a part of any such trial? What reason would he have for sticking his long neck out for the coyote? Has anyone ever asked the Road Runner what he thinks of Wile E.? How could he answer any questions if all he says is “Meep Meep”? Would he sit still long enough in a courtroom to give testimony?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
(Side note: The film repeatedly spells it out as “Beep Beep”. I call bullshit. I distinctly hear the “m” sound there.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Regardless, it’s probably a moot point. If you want to try and serve the Road Runner with a subpoena, good luck. If you’re working for the corporate overlords (more on them later) and trying to kill or capture the Road Runner before he can testify, may Chuck Jones have mercy on your soul. You already know how that’s going to work out. Wile E. Coyote sure does.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Speaking of which, let’s talk about the coyote himself. Wile E. Coyote is demonstrably incapable of shame, so you know he doesn’t care about how he looks in the press. And you know he’ll never take a settlement because he’s never once taken the easy way out of anything. I might add that in a courtroom — where everything is done through talking and there’s zero tolerance for any kind of violence — we’ve got a nonverbal coyote who’s only ever tried violence to solve anything. Simply put, Wile E. might be the worst client any lawyer could ever deal with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then again, the movie talks at great length about how Wile E. is so famously tenacious. He never, ever gives up. No matter how hopeless and stupid and self-destructive his objective is, he will keep pursuing that objective long past the heat death of the freaking universe. That level of focus and persistence is genuinely admirable in a way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With all of that said, this is Wile E. Coyote we’re talking about. No matter what else he’s supposedly working on, the only thing that really matters to him is catching that damn Road Runner. Which means that in a lawsuit against a corrupt multinational conglomerate, there’s a distinct chance that Wile E. might endanger or outright abandon the trial if he’s got any chance at all (even a failed, impossible illusion of a chance) at finally catching the Road Runner. Thus Wile E.’s single greatest asset — his laser-sharp focus and unstoppable tenacity regardless of what he has to sacrifice — could turn out to be his undoing if he can’t set aside his own personal mission for the greater good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Switching over to the other side of the equation, let’s look at the Acme Corporation. First of all, it’s worth noting that in this movie, Foghorn Leghorn (Eric Bauza) is the CEO of Acme. I’m not really sure how that happened, but Foghorn was always such a puffed-up blowhard that it fits acceptably well. And anyway, I doubt the higher-ups at WBD would’ve approved such an anti-corporate film unless there was some degree of plausible deniability to separate this fictional multinational conglomerate from the very real multinational conglomerate and the very real humans running it. Putting a cartoon in charge might’ve helped in that regard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Anyway, this film presents the Acme Corporation as a planet-wide monopoly across all industries. It’s kind of a running joke how the Acme logo is slapped across literally everything. The anti-corporate messaging is obvious. And of course this shadowy corporation has its own sinister agenda that’s gradually exposed as the film unfolds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Without getting too deep into spoilers, the basic gist is that this corporation is profiting off the suffering and exploitation of an under-privileged few, to deliver better products for the masses and greater profits for a select few Acme execs. Again, the concept of “suffering and exploitation” means something very different when applied to cartoons who can instantly and completely recover from total disintegration. That goes double for Wile E. Coyote, a mangy canine out in the middle of nowhere who willingly subjects himself to so much injury and indignity in the pursuit of one particular bird.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Why should anyone care about Wile E. Coyote? Why should anyone care about his well-being? Hell, his endless suffering has brought us decades of laughter, why should we complain if it profits us in some way? Here’s a hint: To the billionaires and corporate execs of the world, every single one of us is every bit as disposable and worthless as Wile E. Coyote. That said, there is precious little that billionaires hate more than being ridiculed, and Wile E. is uniquely capable of making his foes into laughing stocks if he puts his mind to it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then there’s the matter of the lawyers involved. Will Forte plays Kevin Avery, a personal injury lawyer in Albuquerque. He’s part of a law firm with Dottie Jones (Martha Kelly), who might actually be the laziest and most useless lawyer in all of past, present, and fiction; and Sal Maltese (Tone Bell), who doesn’t seem to do much of anything except keep us posted on how badly things are going.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
(Side note: All three lawyers were named after writers and animators who were foundational to Wile E. Coyote\/Road Runner and the Looney Tunes in general. Nice touch.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Kevin’s big business strategy is to nickel-and-dime the Acme Corporation by filing so many property damage claims against them, settling each one out of court for a few hundred bucks. His cases never go to court. He’s never gone to trial. In all open defiance of everything it takes to be a lawyer, there is no fight whatsoever in Kevin. He wants everything open-and-shut because he’s so pathologically scared of trying and failing. Then he meets up with Wile E. and learns more about what Acme is up to and you already know where his development arc is going from there. The two were made for each other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I’d be remiss not to mention Lana Candor, in the role of Kevin’s niece\/intern, the only one in the whole office building with any kind of idealism or work ethic. And of course we’ve got John Cena, gamely playing Acme’s top lawyer as a bona fide shitheel. There’s also P.J. Byrne, who’s mostly there to make Cena look funnier and more villainous. Oh, and Byrne gets a running gag involving hair loss, make of that what you will.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On the cartoon side of things, the Tasmanian Devil has a brief yet funny courtroom scene, with veteran voice actor Jim Cummings providing the voice. Granny gets a small yet crucial supporting role, Witch Hazel and Miss Prissy each get a cute little speaking cameo, and all three are voiced by Candi Milo. All the other Looney Tunes characters are voiced by Eric Bauza, the second coming of Mel Blanc himself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Obviously, Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner are given center stage, and Foghorn Leghorn also gets extensive runtime as a chief antagonist. But there are a number of other supporting and cameo players in here as well. Daffy Duck gets his own extended set piece. Tweety Bird shows up as an Acme informant, and Sylvester pokes his head in there as well. Pepe Le Pew shows up just long enough to get roasted into oblivion. Speedy Gonzalez doesn’t actually appear, but he gets a funny little shout-out. Elmer Fudd pops up in the unlikeliest place. Porky Pig only gets one line, but it’s hilarious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But what about Bugs Bunny? Well, the filmmakers were meticulously careful in deciding how much screen time to give him and how that time would be used. Suffice to say that he’s mostly there as an exposition machine, but he fills that role in a way that only Bugs Bunny could do. For instance, he chimes in with a last-minute reveal that immediately begs the question of why he didn’t provide that evidence in the first place, which in turn breaks the whole damn plot wide open. Then again, this is Bugs Bunny — conventional rules of logic don’t apply to him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Speaking of which, it seems that the film takes place in a continuity where none of the Looney Tunes characters know each other or know of each other. Obviously, Wile E. and Road Runner know each other, and some of the Tunes know each other through their time working at Acme, but that’s about it. After so many decades of crossovers and appearances together in every possible medium, it took some adjustment getting used to a setting in which Daffy Duck and Porky Pig never met. Seriously, I was caught off guard watching a full-grown adult — one who grew up in a world inhabited by cartoons, no less — who didn’t immediately recognize Bugs Bunny’s voice or even his catchphrase.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On a final miscellaneous note, I have to acknowledge Steven Price and his contributions on score. All throughout the picture, the score is complemented by a chorus, and the chorus only sings “Meep” over and over again. Goddamn genius.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The plot has its issues, but Coyote vs. Acme<\/em> works so damned effectively on Looney Tunes logic that the plot holes barely register. The filmmakers prove themselves expertly capable of parlaying the logic, history, and characters of the Looney Tunes into 100 minutes of hilarious jokes and visual gags. Not only that, but the film is heartfelt and incisive in deconstructing the Looney Tunes — Coyote\/Road Runner in particular — and explaining why these characters still matter after so many decades. Not only that, but the filmmakers are every bit as ruthless in working around or outright burning anything about the franchise we don’t need anymore. (Again, that Pepe Le Pew joke.)<\/p>\n\n\n\nIt’s funny, it’s heartfelt, it’s intelligent, everyone involved came to play, and there’s seamless integration of live-action with animation. After so many decades of trying to chase after Who Framed Roger Rabbit?<\/em> this is the closet we’ve ever gotten to a true spiritual successor. May the Warner Bros. execs who tried to bury this be fucked forever sideways with a cactus, damned to hell right next to Chip ‘n’ Dale (2022)<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\nWe should all be thanking our lucky stars that from out of WB’s self-immolation, Ketchup Entertainment safely delivered us The Day the Earth Blew Up<\/em> and this movie. I strongly recommend watching both of them as quickly as possible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fantastic<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":734,"featured_media":13842,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[5261,4748,1755,5258,4373,5257,5259,4238,5260,1198],"class_list":["post-13840","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-coyote-vs-acme","tag-eric-bauza","tag-john-cena","tag-kenneth-choi","tag-lana-condor","tag-luis-guzman","tag-martha-kelly","tag-p-j-byrne","tag-tone-bell","tag-will-forte"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3uOb3-3Be","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/moviecuriosities.fmuk.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/PXL_20260824_024709758-scaled-e1787540670571.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/moviecuriosities.fmuk.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13840","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/moviecuriosities.fmuk.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/moviecuriosities.fmuk.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moviecuriosities.fmuk.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/734"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moviecuriosities.fmuk.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13840"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/moviecuriosities.fmuk.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13840\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13841,"href":"https:\/\/moviecuriosities.fmuk.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13840\/revisions\/13841"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moviecuriosities.fmuk.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13842"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/moviecuriosities.fmuk.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13840"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moviecuriosities.fmuk.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13840"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moviecuriosities.fmuk.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13840"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}