The intrepid desert predator Wile E. Coyote and his speedy would-be prey the road runner were first introduced to audiences in 1949 in the 7-minute animated theatrical short "Fast and Furry-ous," which set the template for dozens of subsequent shorts. The durability of the Coyote-Road Runner dynamic is evidenced by its longevity and unyielding humor, which offers only slight variations on the same basic scenario: The coyote wants to eat the road runner, but the latter is too fast, so the former resorts to absurdly complex plans involving blueprints and a wide range of products, most of which have been purchased from the Acme Corporation and none of which perform in the manner expected, leading to copious slapstick injuries. Although the shorts were originally produced for the theatrical market, their pop-culture permamence (like that of all of the Looney Tunes characters) can be attributed primarily to their omnipresence on Saturday morning television screeners via The Bugs Bunny and Road Runner Show, which replayed the coyote's abject failures to catch the road runner on a weekly basis, thus cementing them in the brains of impressionable Gen-X viewers like myself throughout the 1970s and '80s.

The ubiquity of the coyote's travails involving failed Acme products and severe bodily injury caught the attention of several humorists along the way, including Joey Green, who wrote "Cliff-Hanger Justice," a three-part series for National Lampoon magazine in 1982 that followed the coyote's failed product liability lawsuit against Acme, and Ian Frazier, who created the amusingly detailed text of a similar lawsuit in The New Yorker in 1990 ("Mr. Coyote states that on eighty-five separate occasions he has purchased of the Acme Company (hereinafter, ‘Defendant'), through that company's mail-order department, certain products which did cause him bodily injury due to defects in manufacture or improper cautionary labelling").

As most know, the road to turning the coyote's lawsuit into a big-screen adventure has been long and complicated, with Warner Bros. deciding to shelve the completed film back in 2023 in order to use it as a tax write-off. Much complaining ensued, as did various bids for the distribution rights, creating a Kafkaesque black hole of Hollywood financial and business-related ridiculousness that only the kind of cocksure, high-priced lawyers lampooned in the movie itself could possibly understand. Yet, through some miracle the film has finally made it to theaters, and thank goodness because it is way too clever, too funny, and too (can't believe I am saying this) heartfelt to have sat on a shelf next to Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah's Batgirl so a massive media conglomerate could take a $30 million tax write-off.

The screenplay by Samy Burch (May December, Late Fame) from a story she concocted along with James Gunn (Superman, Guardians of the Galaxy) and Jeremy Slater (The Umbrella Academy) from Frazier's article, posits the idea that humans and cartoon characters co-exist in day-to-day life, a conceit that is just introduced and left for us to accept without explanation. The coyote is inspired by a TV commercial by small-time, quick-settlement lawyer Kevin Avery (Will Forte) to sue Acme for all the times their products went haywire (which, of course, allows the film to replay some of the best slapstick moments from the original shorts). He travels to Albuquerque, New Mexico, with all his failed Acme products stuffed into a bindle and convinces Kevin—or, more to the point, tricks him into—suing the massive Acme Corporation, whose headquarters look like something out of an Avengers movie. Kevin, who lives in a motel and sleeps in the same suit he wears to work every day, is in way over his head against Acme's team of legal sharks led by the condescending Buddy Crane (John Cena in full smarmy-villain mode). All Kevin has is the coyote (who can't even speak, but occasionally conveys his thoughts via conveniently produced signs) and his overeager legal intern, Paige (Lana Condor), whose energy and desire to do good in the world is in direct contrast to Kevin's exhaustion and cynicism.

Cue the legal showdown, which eventually involves most of the familiar Looney Tunes characters, including Foghorn Leghorn as Acme's blustery CEO, Bugs Bunny as a shadowy whistle-blower, and Elmer Fudd as a supercilious Senator. Thankfully, the Looney Tunes characters maintain their traditional hand-drawn appearance and, a few caveats aside, stay true to their expected characterizations. Most kids (and a lot of adults) in the audience probably won't recognize Dr. Lorre, an Acme scientist whose disappearance is key to the case, as a caricature of the great German actor Peter Lorre, but that doesn't make him any less amusing. For those in the know, the film is packed with in-jokes and references to the Looney Tunes' history, including the name of Kevin's law firm, which is a shout-out to the original animators Tex Avery, Chuck Jones, and Michael Maltese, although it works just as well for those who aren't.

It certainly helps to have a basic understanding of the coyote-road runner dynamic, which turns out to have a surprisingly meaningful emotional subtext, as does the growing relationship between the coyote and Kevin. Neither is entirely truthful with the other, but they end up having each other's backs when it comes down to the wire. It also isn't hard to see the film as a not-too-subtle commentary on the crushing nature of modern American business and the near impossibility of Davids fighting and winning against those Goliaths anymore—they have too much money, too much power, and too many lawyers. All one can hope to do is have your day in court and live to chase the road runner again. And, while isn't a masterpiece by any stretch, it is still good to know that Coyote vs. Acme got its day.

Copyright © 2026 James Kendrick

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