Hardly a day goes by without someone saying, in reference to an edgy piece of pop culture, “They could never make that today.” It almost seems as if some people like saying that too much — as if they secretly approve of the fact. But in certain cases, there’s simply no denying the truth of it. If someone at Nickelodeon today, or the Disney Channel or the Cartoon Network, tried to program a series of animated shorts as violent and anarchic and demented and sadomasochistic as the Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner cartoons created and (mostly) directed by Chuck Jones, starting in 1949, that person might be called up on charges.
That, of course, is exactly why those cartoons were impossibly great. To those of us who grew up on them, watching Wile E. Coyote do everything in his power to catch and kill the Road Runner gave off a charge of reckless endangerment that was hilarious and cathartic. It was also disarmingly casual. Every time Wile E. got blown to smithereens by a faulty detonator, or dropped 1,000 feet off a cliff to a distant puff-of-smoke crash landing, we experienced the comedy of pure aggression — and the comedy of ironic resilience. That Wile E. always bounced right back in the next scene lent the crazed destruction a weirdly optimistic undercurrent.
“Coyote vs. Acme,” a studio comedy that combines famous cartoon characters and live action in the style of “Who Framed Roger Rabbit” (and also in the style of dozens of cheesy-bad franchise hybrids like the “Garfield” and “Alvin and the Chipmunks” and “Casper” and “Stuart Little” films), is a movie that wants to pay homage to the prankish exuberance of the “Looney Tunes” and “Merrie Melodies” cartoons. The movie is about how Wile E. Coyote, after too many years of failing to catch the Road Runner, mostly because every gizmo and dastardly piece of equipment he ever put toward the task (dynamite, anvils, magnetic gloves) failed to work, decides to sue the Acme Corporation, the manufacturer of each of those faulty products. Will Forte, wearing a beard and a flop of geek hair, is Kevin Avery, the late-night-TV-ad lawyer who takes the case.
At heart, “Coyote vs. Acme” is a courtroom comedy. But the upshot of the movie is to integrate as much Road Runner-style mayhem as possible into a live-action universe. The film is chock-full of nods and references and jokey Looney Tunes Easter eggs. It could have been called “Remembrance of Rube Goldberg Bombs Past.”
Yet there’s a certain way that “Coyote vs. Acme,” next to those cartoons, feels neutered and tame. The movie will serve up an escalating gag, like the Road Runner eating metal pellets so that Wile E. can trap him with a magnet, only to see Wile E. magnetized by a speeding train. But the staging doesn’t have the sustained, rollicking ferocity that made some of those cartoons as freewheeling in their maniacal slapstick as “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” “Coyote vs. Acme” keeps giving you the feeling that it’s referencing that earlier universe, rather than immersing you in it. That’s partly because the movie isn’t trying to be a live-action Road Runner cartoon, but also because it stops short of conjuring their insane spirit.
The movie was inspired by Ian Frazier’s 1990 New Yorker story (a rather labored piece of whimsy), which treats Wile E. Coyote’s lawsuit against Acme with put-on bureaucratic seriousness. “Coyote vs. Acme,” however, is looser and lighter. It really does just want to be piece of nostalgic cartoon hijinks, and to that end it’s got a winning gregariousness. The film was scripted by Samy Burch, the gifted screenwriter of “May December” and “Late Fame,” and she does a meticulous job of orchestrating conspiracies and cartoon cameos. It’s all worked out on paper. Yet the film is missing something: the delirious fizz of true anarchic bedlam.
Wile E. Coyote is our hero, and he’s his familiar wordless disgruntled self (though he holds up funny signs on occasion to indicate what he’s thinking). But we don’t see enough of the sneaky side of Wile E., the hungry predator who’s almost like the Grinch. Meanwhile, Will Forte gives a one-note performance as Avery, the lawyer who’s stuck in a mode of desperate high dudgeon. I’ve often felt allergic to animation-meets-live-action movies, because the live-action parts tend to get reduced to monotonous cartoons. That’s kind of what happens here. Forte’s frantic ambulance chaser, Lana Condor as his legal-assistant niece, John Cena as the grimacing Acme Corporation defense attorney — it’s all thin stuff.
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“Coyote vs. Acme” will play in theaters starting Aug. 28, but the movie has, of course, been through its own obstacle course. After being completed, it was shelved by its studio, Warner Bros. Pictures, only to become something of a cause célèbre among vintage cartoon fans. The movie certainly deserves to be released — and thanks to the independent distributor Ketchup Entertainment, which bought it from Warner Bros. for $50 million, that is now happening. But will the purchase prove to be worth it? “Coyote vs. Acme” would like to be a classic-cartoon version of “Roger Rabbit,” but I’m afraid it just plays like a polite and mildly likable look back at yesterday’s cartoon madness.
The film’s most winning gambit it to sprinkle “Looney Tunes” and “Merrie Melodies” characters throughout the story. Tweety Bird is used nicely, as is Daffy Duck, who dominates the film’s explosive opening scene (getting trapped in goo during a top-secret Acme test film). But only two legendary characters truly get to throw their weight around — that grandiose Southern-fried sociopath Foghorn Leghorn, who’s the CEO of Acme, and the great Bugs Bunny, who is always wilier than anyone, including poor Wile E.
As Wile. E. and the Roadrunner discover that they’re frenemies who need each other, the movie ends up taking a moral stand against the Acme Corporation. It’s revealed that there’s a sinister reason why the company’s products kept blowing up in Wile E.’s face. But who wants to see Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner turned into the dramatic linchpins of a Looney Tunes “Erin Brockovich”? It’s true that you couldn’t make Road Runner cartoons today. But you can make a movie like “Coyote vs. Acme,” which melts down anarchy into presentable buddy mishegas.
From Variety US