Coyote Vs Acme (2026)

Coyote vs. Acme feels like a breath of fresh air: a well-written, thoroughly enjoyable throwback to the Looney Tunes of old.

Coyote Vs Acme

Every mash-up of live action and cartoon owes a debt to Robert Zemeckis's Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988). But the new Loony Tunes outing, Coyote Vs Acme, also takes some cues from the 2007 DreamWorks film, Bee Movie. In what remains an underrated animation, Barry the bee sues the human race in an attempt to put an end to the exploitation of bees. Here, we have Wile E. Coyote suing the Acme Corporation because of repeated injuries sustained while using their products in his endless bid to catch the Road Runner.

Based on a satirical 1990 New Yorker article, the idea for Coyote Vs Acme has been around for quite some time, and was initially shelved by Warner Bros, before they sold the Looney Tunes hybrid to Ketchup Entertainment. Will Forte stars as Wile E’s underdog lawyer Kevin, and John Cena turns up for yet another solid comedic performance as Buddy Crane, Acme's smarmy counsel. Chaos ensues, and the ultra-violent slapstick comedy is every bit as amusing as you might remember. There’s a huge number of Looney Tunes alumni that appear throughout the film, and it’s almost impossible not to let a small nostalgic smile break out at almost every appearance; Daffy Duck’s cameo is especially amusing.

Daffy was front and centre for the 2003 feature-length Tunes outing, the underappreciated Looney Tunes: Back in Action, which had the unenviable task of following up 1996’s much-loved Space Jam. The less said about Space Jam: A New Legacy (2021), the better, and thankfully Coyote Vs Acme is a far better film. The cartoon characters on display are timeless to some extent, and you can certainly imagine seeing them all on the big screen once more in the near future. Coyote Vs Acme hammers the message of corporate greed like so many before it, and it feels particularly vehement after the intertextuality and self-aggrandising A New Legacy, a film in which Warner Bros. seemingly attempted to shoehorn references to its entire back catalogue.

In some ways it’s a thankless task reviewing a Looney Tunes film, but considering what a let down A New Legacy was, Coyote Vs Acme feels like a breath of fresh air. Not because it's innovative or offers anything different, but more because it gives you exactly what you’d want from it. I laughed throughout, and it wasn’t simply guffawing at familiar characters. It’s a well-written, solid, and thoroughly enjoyable throwback to one's youth, wrapped in a through line of exploitative capitalism which, rather bizarrely for someone who is essentially psychopathic, Wile E Coyote of all people chooses to take a stand against. It’s not Space Jam, but this will make you forget your troubles for ninety odd minutes. ★★★½ 7.2/10