REVIEW:
Coyote Vs Acme was a surprisingly excellent movie. Chalk that up to the comedic talent of Will Forte, plus the great humor involved in presenting two characters who don’t speak and have to use signs and beeps to communicate. We are talking about Wiley Coyote and the Road Runner, of course.
The movie has a very fun premise. Over the years, we have scene sketch after sketch of Wiley Coyote chasing the Road Runner and using an ACME product to try and trap the speedy bird. Only the ACME product always backfires and ends up hurting Coyote. These are physical gags, like Chaplin and Buster Keaton used to do, only now we have the cartoon version. And Coyote never really gets hurt, to the point where he can’t walk it off. So watching him get bopped around in all kinds of ways is funny, because you know he’s not in any real pain.
Well, the premise here is what if Wiley Coyote decided to sue the ACME corporation for all of their products malfunctioning. And so he goes and finds a lawyer (Kevin Avery, played by Will Forte,) and together they plan the case. Only Avery just wants to sue for one product and have a quick and easy settlement. Only Coyote is not interested. He wants to go all out. He wants to sue for everything and brings along a giant bag filled with products that have failed him.
Between Avery’s given up on the world, and just wanting everything to be easy and meaningless attitude, and Coyote’s crazy approach to building things non-stop, the humor is just right. So is the way the story keeps building up and up, first with Avery just wanting to settle, then with Avery and Coyote getting offered a huge settlement, then with the case going to trial, and finally with it going before a Washington DC Federal Court.
On top of all that, the movie finds the time to imagine real humorous and entertaining situations that we haven’t seen before. For example, we have seen Wiley Coyote go after the Road Runner a billion times, but have never seen humans go after the Road Runner. In this movie, two different groups come to the desert trying to track down the Road Runner at two different times. First Avery and his lawyer team come there, looking to subpoena the Road Runner. Then later, the ACME corporations lawyers go there looking for him. All of this makes for a lot of fun.
So does the relationship between Wiley Coyote and Avery. The two of them have great interactions, and at one point, Avery even has to get Coyote a room at a motel, which means he has to explain to the owner, why Coyote is not a pet, and is in fact his client. It’s all a blast. So are the heartfelt messages and character changes that come in the second half, Forte, in particular, delivers a fantastic speech about Wiley Coyote.
The only thing I don’t get is the very end of the movie. The way the trial raps up. It doesn’t quite feel right. It seems like something is missing or cut, with one character who was lost for most of the movie now suddenly reappearing out of nowhere. Still, it’s a small mistake for an otherwise pretty excellent film.