Here is a quirky, peculiar, yet strangely diverting live-action-toon hybrid of the kind that hasn’t been popular at the movies for many a day; it gives us a new twist on the surreal forever war between Wile E Coyote and the speedy Road Runner (catchphrase “beep beep”, pronounced “meep, meep”). The music over the closing credits will incidentally disappoint fans of this animated franchise; they’ve gone with the Clash’s I Fought the Law, but surely it should be Roadrunner from Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers?
Coyote Vs Acme is a comedy whose obsessive and hyperactive pedantry is exhausting, but arguably part of the point, aimed at America’s litigious culture, corporate arrogance and monopoly capitalism. So when producers Warner Bros initially decided to shelve the whole thing as a tax writeoff, that must have felt to director Dave Green like an ironic cartoon anvil to the head. Well, the film was rescued and it would be great therefore to discover that this is a masterpiece. Sadly it’s not, but there are some laughs and the pure fanatical oddity makes this watchable.
It’s based on a 1990 gag from humorist Ian Frazier in the New Yorker’s Shouts and Murmurs column, about Wile E Coyote suing the Acme corporation because all the wacky gadgets he’s bought from them to capture Road Runner – the rocket-powered boots etc – always go terribly wrong. Of course the film takes place within the original cartoon’s hyperactive slapstick-violent world; Wile E Coyote and Road Runner and many other Looney Tunes stars – including the animated version of Peter Lorre – appear as their own 2D cartoony selves. But flesh-and-blood Will Forte plays Wile E’s hapless underdog lawyer and John Cena is Acme’s sinister, smoothie counsel.
It’s an odd comic realignment of Wile E Coyote. Once a homicidal psychopath, he’s now the Erin Brockovich of the cartoon world, and Acme are the villains, with a creepy conspiracy to cover up. Jerry Seinfeld’s Bee Movie was actually a much funnier and more ingenious comedy about cartoon creatures suing corporate behemoths. But Wile E’s bizarre day in court is certainly distinctive.
• Coyote Vs Acme is out in the UK on 21 August, 28 August in the US and 17 September in Australia
