Coyote vs. Acme (2026) Review!!

Synopsis – After Acme products fail him one too many times in his dogged pursuit of the Roadrunner, Wile E. Coyote decides to hire a billboard lawyer to sue the Acme Corporation.

My Take – Though the Looney Tunes may no longer command the cultural dominance they once did, audiences erupted in outrage when Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav announced in November 2023 that three completed films, including this latest Dave Green (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows) directorial, alongside Batgirl and Scoob! Holiday Haunt, would be permanently shelved as tax write‑offs.

While those two projects remain locked away, the campaign to rescue this new Looney Tunes adventure grew so loud, both inside and outside the industry, that Warner Bros. eventually relented. The studio sold distribution rights to little-known independent distributor Ketchup Entertainment, who had already salvaged last year’s The Day the Earth Blew Up, for $50 million.

And now that the film is finally coming out, it’s quite perplexing to think that something this good was even considered un-releasable at all, in fact it is a genuine creative triumph.

Inspired by Ian Frazier’s 1990 New Yorker piece, with a screenplay by Samy Burch (May December) and a story credited to Burch, James Gunn, and Jeremy Slater, the film blends legal drama, crime caper, Saturday‑morning cartoon, and morality tale into a surprisingly moving David‑versus‑Goliath narrative where Wile E. Coyote’s eternal suffering becomes a razor‑sharp satire of corporate greed, exploitation, and perseverance. Leaving us with not only the finest Looney Tunes feature ever made, but arguably the best animation/live‑action hybrid in decades.

Sure, a few pacing and length issues keep it shy of perfection. But its strength lies in refusing to lean solely on nostalgia. Instead, it honors these characters by expanding their comedic mechanics and uncovering something unexpectedly human within them. Director Green understands what generations have cherished about the Looney Tunes, yet he avoids the easy trap of parading familiar faces for applause. He builds a film that feels both timeless and freshly alive, while finding something unexpectedly human inside them.

Set in a world reminiscent of Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (1988), where cartoons and humans coexist, the story follows Wile E. Coyote who as usual is concocting a new scheme in hopes of catching and eating his eternal rival, the Road Runner. In this instance, he uses a pair of ACME rocket-boosted roller skates. Naturally, the skates don’t work and his scheme blows up in his face yet again.

Dejected at his failure, Wile E. returns to his cave and realizes his decades of failure have been mainly due to the thousands of faulty Acme products he’s purchased over the years. At that moment appears a TV ad for a law firm Avery, Jones and Maltese, which makes him realize he has had enough of being blown up, catapulted, flattened, pulverized, and generally humiliated by defective ACME products.

So he travels to Albuquerque, New Mexico and hires Kevin Avery (Will Forte), the kind of cheap billboard unambitious personal-injury lawyer, who has no intent on ruffling ACME’s feathers, and generally prefers making small settlements for singular incidents, much to the annoyance of his Oxford-educated niece Paige (Lana Condor).

However, Wile E. refuses to accept a meager check, and his massive compilation of evidence, plus a bit of trickery, leads to a full-blown lawsuit, and Kevin now has to challenge the might of his old law school rival Buddy Crane (John Cena), as well as ACME CEO Foghorn Leghorn (voiced by Eric Bauza).

What begins as the setup for a clever short gag quickly reveals itself as the disguise for something far more profound: a surprisingly optimistic story about courage, persistence, and the audacity to confront the impossible. In today’s climate, its themes of standing up to overtly greedy corporations resonate powerfully with audiences across generations. In a sense, calling real‑world corporate politics “a little looney” feels perfectly apt. Samy Burch’s screenplay shapes these broad ideas into something brilliant—well‑plotted, intelligent, inspiring, and consistently laugh‑out‑loud funny.

The reframing of Wile E. Coyote from antagonist to victim of the machine works beautifully. His refusal to quit becomes the film’s emotional foundation. For decades, audiences have laughed at his endless failures; here, the filmmakers ask us to consider the meaning of his relentless perseverance. Director Dave Green and the writers expand Wile E.’s familiar persona without sacrificing what made him funny. Beneath the flattened fur, scorch marks, and ACME invoices lies something unexpectedly human.

His perfect foil is Kevin Avery, a lawyer beaten down by life, who has drifted so far from his dreams that he no longer chases them. He specializes in “cartoon accident” cases but hasn’t seen a courtroom in years, preferring quick settlements. The pairing of Kevin and Wile E. is more than a comedic setup. They are opposites who ultimately teach each other: Wile E. cannot imagine giving up, while Kevin has forgotten why he once refused to.

Their unlikely partnership provides the film’s strongest emotional thread, grounding the chaos of falling anvils, exploding TNT, and cartoon physics in something recognizably human. These aren’t literary figures, nor does the movie pretend they are. Yet they ring true. By dimensionalizing Wile E. without losing irreverence, director Green and writer Burch allow audiences to see fragments of themselves in him.

And then there are the gags—non‑stop verbal and sight jokes that elevate the film. Luis Guzmán as a “no‑nonsense, no‑silly‑stuff judge,” a vaudevillian aside about a secretary who happens to be a penguin, or a courtroom sketch artist depicting a rocket shoe chasing the judge—these moments alone justify a theatrical release.

Visually, the film achieves one of its greatest triumphs: seamlessly blending two‑dimensional, hand‑drawn characters with live‑action environments. Exploding TNT singes human hair as easily as animated fur; cartoon holes in the ground threaten both Toons and people. The physical rules of these worlds merge so naturally that audiences rarely pause to admire the technical trickery—it simply works.

If the film falters, it’s in repetition: the ACME mystery plot circles back too often, and the runtime stretches a bit longer than necessary. But beneath the absurdity lies a pointed critique of corporate capitalism—a system that monetizes suffering, vulnerability, and even failure itself. One could argue it’s ironic that Warner Bros., embroiled in its own contested merger, tried to block the release of a movie about wily heroes taking down a corrupt conglomerate. But perhaps that irony is the most Looney Tunes touch of all.

Performances wise, Will Forte nails the delicate balance of sincerity and absurdity, making Kevin’s transformation both funny and unexpectedly heartfelt. John Cena is a wonderfully preening embodiment of the idea that enough money and influence can turn consequences into someone else’s problem.

Lana Condor shines in her understated comedic role, providing a steady counterpoint to the chaos. The supporting ensemble adds plenty of laughs: Tone Bell, Luis Guzmán, Martha Kelly, and P.J. Byrne each bring their own flavor of humor, ensuring the film’s courtroom antics and cartoon calamities never lose their spark. On the whole, ‘Coyote vs. Acme’ is a riotous blend of slapstick and satire, a heartfelt courtroom comedy that proves even failure can be triumphant.