OK it’s not lost on me that for two weeks in a row I’m writing about Albert Camus and the absurdity of life. Yeah, I’m seriously writing about the absurdity of life in coloration to a Loony Tunes movie. And in case you think I’m pulling that comparison out of my ass - no, it’s literally textual to the movie. A significant plot point takes it’s cues from the Myth of Sisyphus and then directly compares that to Wile E. Coyote’s attempts to catch the Roadrunner.
So, if you weren’t aware of Coyote Vs. ACME, please allow me to light the fire of knowledge under you. This movie has been infamous for several years running now due to Warner Bros. being dicks about releasing it. Long story short, Coyote Vs. ACME was completed in 2023, but was shelved by the Brothers Warner so they could take a tax write off. And I mean they literally just canned it; far as I understand it, they had no intention of even releasing it on streaming. The Internet’s backlash to this was significant enough that Warner Bros. allowed director Dave Green to shop the film out to distribution companies that would want to take on the expense of releasing it.
Lo and Behold, Ketchup Entertainment stepped in, and I think we should all salute their valiant efforts. A note on this, it’s projected to be somewhat of a success at the box office for it’s short theater engagement. Projections are estimating that CvA will net around $46 mil, which, while it wont recoup it’s $70Mill budget till it goes on streaming and home video, and likely won’t turn a profit, it is somewhat defying expectations. () Initial projections saw the movie earning only $12 million on it’s opening weekend, so it’s doing better than expected. Not phenomenal, but better. I strongly, strongly encourage you to go see this movie if a theater near you is playing it, just to let Warner Brothers know that this is the type of movie we want.
And what type of movie is that? you ask. A children’s film about a coyote ... suing a giant magacorp for it’s faulty product line? It’s a corporate thriller about a cover up and a missing scientist? It’s a courtroom drama that ends with a congressional investigation like a Frank Capra movie? It’s an existentially bleak movie about an animated character realizing that he’s been an unwitting test subject for a corporation that doesn’t care that a marginalized consumer base is being treated as unwilling guinea pigs while buying products declared “state of the art?” Wait this is a children’s movie?
Yes. It’s both a classic Loony Tunes comedy, and it’s a hilarious satire on corporate greed. It’s kind of a perfect satire actually. You’d argue that there’s no way a company would knowingly produce faulty products to test them on the population AND cover up their involvement ... and then you remember Theranos existed. And that Ford once put out the version of the Pinto that exploded when you rear-ended them. And that McDonald’s used to keep their coffee way, way too hot and burned an elderly woman (and then used the media to smear the lawsuit as frivolous). So take any one of these cartoony, stranger than reality incidents, slap an ACME logo on each company and it suddenly becomes startlingly plausible. It’s wonderful satire, and given the way Warner Bros. treated this film, it adds a sort of meta-fictional layer to the underdog punching up narrative.
But as I mentioned, Sisyphus gets a mention. I won’t spoil how exactly; suffice to say it directly labels Wile E.’s pursuit of justice, dignity and yes, even the Roadrunner, Sisyphean tasks. It directly tackles the absurdity of carrying on in the face of failure and an indifferent universe. Wile E.’s lawyer Kevin Avery (played by a wonderfully disheveled Will Forte) starts the movie knowing what he is, an ambulance chaser eking out a living by settling case against ACME. He’s not looking for a fight, just a quick payday and small attempt at getting justice. But he faces two serious forces that slowly change his mind: Wile E.’s gosh-darned determinism to get justice from ACME and his niece Paige Avery’s (played by a wonderfully perky Lana Condor) enthusiasm for the law. It’s not like Avery is going to win (Mild spoilers) he is a two-bit lawyer going up against a gigantic conglomerate which has the power of the media and John Cena on their side, but the important thing is he keeps going.
I do have some complaints about the movie, but they’re fairly minor. Arguably the pacing could have been trimmed down a little, and the editing and flow of the plot sorta fails around the 2/3rds mark. I also think Will Forte’s character could have been given slightly better motivation at the start of the story; his character parallels Wile E. Coyote in that way, he’s just an ambulance chaser and it felt like something was missing. Ultimately his character comes full circle so I can’t complain.
If I haven’t made it clear, Coyote Vs. ACME is a good movie, smarter than you might think, and filled with fantastic animation. I have seriously undersold this movie’s animation thus far; I have seen cartoons mix with liveation this well since Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Go see it. One final note, I ahve to mention that this movie was inspired by a 1997 New Yorker article by humorist Ian Frazier. Written as a dry opening statement detailing the numerous injuries sustained by Wile E. Coyote as he uses faulty equipment from ACME. The original article is paywalled on the New Yorker site, but I found a copy reprinted in the Texas Bar Journal, of all places. Give it a read, it’s pretty funny.
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