Coyote vs. ACME ~ Review
By: [email protected] on
In the introduction to her book The Gift of Failure, author Jessica Lahey* quotes an essay from one of her eighth-grade students which points out that this student’s fear of failure takes away from the process of actually learning. This is the Gift of Failure’s thesis, and Lahey goes on to describe, through exhaustive research, how modern society is structured around making sure kids do not fail and thus deprive them of the tools to succeed. In effect, learning from failure is its own skill to success. Now, in the pop cultural landscape, which character is most associated with failure? Which character gets up every day and continuously face plants into the road, only to scrape himself up again and crawl back in the shape of an accordion to the drawing board? Who am I kidding? You read the title of the review, you know I’m talking about Wile E. Coyote!
Wile E. Coyote and his nemesis the Road Runner were created in 1949 by director Chuck Jones and writer Michael Maltese. The premise is this: Wile E. Coyote tries to catch the Road Runner for dinner, and every attempt ends in comical disaster, mostly due to the hilariously malfunctioning ACME Corporation inventions. As Coyote vs. ACME opens, Wile E. has had enough of the ACME Corporation’s mechanical failings and decides to take them to court with the help of accident attorney to cartoons Kevin Avery (Will Forte). Now Kevin is no stranger to failure himself; he’s lost several court cases and is so scared of failing that he refuses to take a risk and never brings a case to court. This has bred a profound laziness in the man, much to his intern Paige’s (Lana Condor) chagrin. However, Wile E. refuses to settle, so his lawsuit goes to trial. ACME’s nefarious corporate lawyer, Buddy Crane (John Cena), wants to avoid a trial as it might reveal a cover-up at the heart of the ACME corporation.
Coyote vs. ACME is a total hoot. If you’re a fan of the Looney Tunes characters, especially of Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner, there is a lot to love here. From the lovingly anarchic tone to the small easter eggs, such as Coyote’s business card reading “Genius,” all the various ACME gizmos and gadgets, and even the Termite Terrace animators’ penchant for putting a caricature of Peter Lorre in everything, this is catnip for Looney Tunes fans. The hilarious script by Samy Burch (with story credit by Burch, James Gunn, and Jeremy Slater) cleverly adapts Ian Frazier’s New Yorker essay of the same name, from a legal brief (with the Looney Tunes) into a legal drama (with the Looney Tunes). So, imagine The Rainmaker but with Wile E. Coyote at the center. The result is a surprisingly entertaining mashup.
Directing animation mixed with live-action footage is no easy feat, and can go south pretty easily. But Director Dave Green melds the two mediums; he’s helped along by a game cast who never treat their animated co-stars as anything other than real characters. John Cena in particular has a hilarious scene with Tweety Bird. And Will Forte not only has to bounce off a cartoon, but Wile E. Coyote has no lines of dialogue.
But here’s the hat trick the film pulls. At its heart, Coyote vs. ACME is an earnest exploration of what it means to fail and pick yourself up after those failures. This gives Coyote vs. ACME a fair amount of emotional heft and complexity. I’ll probably have my millennial card revoked, but it’s the best live-action hybrid Looney Tunes movie ever made (yes, even better than Space Jam).
I’m unclear why Warner Brothers, in its infinite wisdom, decided that Coyote vs. ACME needed to be shelved for tax purposes. Eventually, people inside and outside the industry made enough noise to get the film released. Perhaps Warner Brothers was afraid of failure too. In the end, I’m glad the film was released. It’s a hilarious and heartfelt end to summer.
Three and a half out of Four Stars
*As it happens, Jessica Lahey was my 10th and 11th grade English teacher (long before she became a rockstar educational speaker and author) and in her class she had us read the Coyote vs. ACME Ian Frazier essay. If I remember correctly, we read it to study essay structure. So, imagine my shock when the film, which already reminded me of one of my favorite teachers, was about the subject of one of her books! Hopefully, I have not disappointed her with a poorly structured review.
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