Final Rating: 4/5
Somewhere in the American desert, the lightning-fast Road Runner runs up and down miles of empty highway. A much slower Coyote trails behind in pursuit. To even the odds, the Coyote employs gadgets from that famous, impossible-to-pin-down company, the Acme Corporation. A ten-thousand pound anvil; a catapult; a pair of rocket boots. Inevitably, the Coyote’s plan fails, thwarted in his attempt at catching his feathered rival without the bird even trying. Such is the format of every Wile E. Coyote cartoon since his introduction to Looney Tunes in 1949’s Fast and Furry-ous.
Coyote vs. Acme, directed by Dave Green, sees Coyote taking his favourite brand to court for years of defective products, supported by a small-time lawyer who has spent his career filing small claims against the corporation. By reimagining Acme as the largest consumer product company in the world, the film uses hallmarks of underdog legal dramas to make a larger statement about corporate greed.
At the start of Coyote vs. Acme, the Coyote approaches Albuquerque attorney Kevin Avery (Will Forte) after yet another failed attempt to catch the Road Runner, this time involving a pair of Acme rocket boots. Unsatisfied with Avery’s suggestion to settle with Acme for $300, the Coyote insists on suing for every defective Acme product he’s ever used, producing a pile of evidence that fills Avery’s office and then some.
Against his better judgement, Avery soon finds himself in a legal battle that makes national headlines. Avery and Coyote are unquestionably the underdogs as they go up against a company with seemingly infinite resources, but as their cause gains supporters, it quickly becomes clear that they not only have a solid case but are on the verge of uncovering something much bigger at the heart of Acme’s cartoon products division.
Coyote vs. Acme is a Looney Tunes story through and through. A major conflict revolves around both legal teams going into the desert and trying (and failing) to catch their star witness: the Road Runner. These segments play out like classic Wile E. Coyote cartoons, right down to the use of enormous amounts of birdseed or comically oversized barrels of Acme Instant Glue, as well as the over-the-top way in which each attempt eventually fails. A glue accident leading to one character losing all his hair; a subpoena pecked through to tauntingly read “Beep Beep.”
Beyond desert asides, the other Looney Tunes characters are cleverly utilized to play to each one’s strengths. Porky Pig is a regular client of Avery’s, having been wounded by Acme gadgets and falling pianos plenty of times throughout his life. Daffy Duck is confined to an asylum for the “exceptionally looney,” kept solitary lest he go crazy. Bugs Bunny is introduced as a Deep Throat-like shadowy contact while passing through Albuquerque. And of course, Coyote himself spends every spare minute fidgeting away on some new Rube Goldberg-esque invention to either capture the Road Runner or make a fool out of the judge.
The film is also a compelling legal drama in the vein of Dark Waters and Erin Brokovich. A story of the little guy taking on an impossibly large corporation, but having a strong case, even if there’s no chance of victory.
Starting from a “humble origin as a cartoon anvil factory,” Acme has gone on to make everything from phones to cars to search engines. Their legal team is all too happy to settle tiny claims while never worrying about anything bigger; in a throwaway line, the chief legal officer for Acme, Buddy Crane (John Cena), reassures a client “the law is on our side. We wrote it.”
Acme has elements of Google, Facebook, Tesla, and Apple – Foghorn Leghorn’s first appearance has him delivering a decidedly Steve Jobs-inspired speech to an enormous room full of investors. It’s also shown as a company with manufacturing infrastructure, and a research team working in old-school laboratories. As one might expect from a movie set in 2022 about a group of characters from the 30s and 40s, a “modern” take on the company feels like something outside of time. In that fusion of old and new, Acme becomes a timeless villain.
Acme is every company that’s ever been too big to fail. Their mistreatment of many of their customers to the benefit of the few isn’t new with tech. In fact, Acme’s approach to evil isn’t even particularly adapted to a new era. The Acme that sold Coyote a faulty catapult in the 50s would still sell him a faulty catapult today. Through strategic lawfare and deliberate targeting of minority populations, they can silence dissenting voices before anyone can hear them.
Acme’s treatment of cartoons in Coyote vs. Acme most directly resembles animal testing. The company’s impressive string of defective products is framed as deliberate within their cartoon products division. Acme gadgets aren’t simply cheaply made gizmos that regularly malfunction; they’re intentionally designed to fail in comical ways as a type of market research for the company’s human products division.
An example given in the third act is “tornado pills,” a supplement that makes cartoons wind up uncontrollably at rapid speed, and whose side effects contributed to the development of jet engines. The correlations between cartoon torture and highly effective human products make just enough sense within a world that already operates on cartoon logic. It helps, of course, that those connections are presented in inventive and visually impressive montages.
In the hands of director Dave Green and writer Samy Burch, the case against Acme is surprisingly solid. Avery and co. demonstrate a pattern of malicious enshittification affecting not only their client, but an entire population, backed up by mountains of evidence and witness testimony.
Frustratingly, however, Avery is not a good enough lawyer to argue this effectively. Far too often, he will resort to ad hominems or yelling the equivalent of “a-ha!” after a client says something leaning towards (but not quite) incriminating. While Avery’s ineptitude robs the movie of some catharsis, Forte’s charm and commitment to portraying a mediocre lawyer grounds Coyote vs. Acme.
Ultimately, it’s a film about doing what’s right in the face of impossible odds. Avery’s fight against Acme is doomed to fail, like Sisyphus rolling the boulder up the hill, or Coyote chasing the Road Runner through the desert.
Thank you to Ketchup Entertainment for the screener.
