After decades of explosions, faulty rockets, collapsing cliffs and catastrophically unreliable gadgets, Wile E. Coyote has finally had enough. In Coyote vs. Acme, one of the most persistent characters in animation history turns his attention away from catching the Road Runner and towards the company responsible for supplying the equipment behind so many of his spectacular failures.
Directed by Dave Green, Coyote vs. Acme takes the timeless slapstick of Looney Tunes and throws it into the unlikely world of a courtroom drama. Inspired by Ian Frazier’s satirical 1990 New Yorker article, the film follows Wile E. as he launches a lawsuit against the ACME Corporation, alleging that its endless collection of questionable products has caused years of personal injury, lost opportunities and considerable suffering. At its heart, however, Green describes the film as a story about refusing to give up.
Helping Wile E. fight his case is Kevin Avery, played by Will Forte. Kevin is a lawyer whose career has fallen far from its promising beginnings. Operating from a strip mall and accustomed to quickly settling cases involving injured cartoon characters, he has spent years avoiding risk following a professional failure of his own.
That makes him the perfect opposite to Wile E. While Kevin allowed one major setback to define his life, Coyote has been flattened, exploded, dropped and humiliated countless times and still wakes up ready to try again. Their partnership becomes the emotional centre of the movie, with each character offering the other a very different perspective on failure.
Standing across the courtroom is John Cena as Buddy Crane, the sharp and intimidating lawyer defending ACME. Rather than relying on Cena’s familiar action credentials, the role gives him the opportunity to play a polished, convincing and threatening legal opponent. Lana Condor joins the human ensemble as Paige, Kevin’s optimistic niece, who pushes her uncle to rediscover some of the ambition and courage he has lost.
Yet the real star remains Wile E. Coyote.
Instead of simply extending the familiar Road Runner shorts into feature length, the filmmakers wanted audiences to see something rarely explored during Wile E.’s long history: how he actually feels. Green approached the character’s endless cartoon suffering seriously enough to ask why audiences have spent generations laughing at his pain, while still preserving the absurd comedy that made him an icon.
Despite never speaking, Wile E. carries the story through expression and physical performance, with Green comparing his visual storytelling abilities to silent cinema legends Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton. His famous signs remain, but are used carefully, allowing his face and body language to communicate much of the emotion.
That performance was made possible through an impressive combination of puppetry and animation. Rather than asking the actors to perform opposite a tennis ball, veteran puppeteer Dave Barclay created a full-size Wile E. puppet that could physically appear on set. Barclay performed alongside Forte and the cast before the puppet was digitally replaced by the finished animated character, giving the actors something tangible to react to.
Visually, Coyote vs. Acme also refuses to abandon the hand-drawn personality of its stars. The filmmakers deliberately preserved the classic 2D Looney Tunes aesthetic instead of transforming Wile E. and company into photorealistic CG creations. Live-action photography captured in New Mexico was combined with animation designed to retain the uneven lines, exaggerated poses and constantly changing shapes associated with the original cartoons.
The result promises something wonderfully unusual: part Looney Tunes adventure, part legal thriller and part celebration of one character’s seemingly indestructible determination.
After more than 75 years of chasing the Road Runner, Wile E. Coyote may finally have discovered that his greatest weapon isn’t another ACME contraption.
Try to catch it… meep meep, pun intended!
In cinemas September 17.
