Wile E, Will. Will, Wile E.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: Nearly three years ago I wrote about the plight of Coyote vs. Acme, the latest Looney Tunes feature film that was in post-production when Warner Brothers announced they’d changed their mind and they’d rather throw the whole thing off a cliff, toss a boulder on it, and declare it a loss on their tax forms. And yet it lives! A groundswell of omnipartisan internet wrath erupted in protest of this craven act of corporate greed and/or executive senselessness and/or misunderstanding by inattentive cartoon watchers who thought Yosemite Sam and Elmer Fudd were the good guys.

The kindly third-party folks at Ketchup Entertainment stepped up and overpaid to save the day and distribute the finished work. WB overlord David Zaslav and his starchy-suited lackeys underestimated how many of us are old enough to remember all those classic shorts in their prime, back when broadcast networks and local syndicated channels could proudly display their innovative slapstick zaniness uncut and uncensored before the devil invented the helicopter-parenting lobbying cults that demanded they be ruined for the sake of undiscerning latchkey kids who might see Bugs Bunny’s antics, get sinister ideas about ordering anvils from Amazon and going on squashing sprees.

The Looney Tunes legacy lives on in the hands of director Dave Green (Earth to Echo) and screenwriter Samy Burch (May December), who shares “Story By” credit with James Gunn (!!) and Jeremy Slater (Moon Knight, Mortal Kombat II), all of whom adapt a 1990 New Yorker article that I’m surprised isn’t paywalled as of this writing. Their efforts weren’t in vain thanks to You, The Viewers at Home, who would’ve looked collectively stupid if this had sucked as much as the Space Jam series did. I’m excited and relieved to report it doesn’t, so rest assured y’all didn’t waste your time. And now you can follow through on your alleged passion and actually go see it in the theater! I mean, you already did and I don’t need to bother writing about it, right?

…right?

…

…oh, internet. *sigh*

The Gist: If I have to explain Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner to you, I don’t even know why you’re reading this. To this day Wile E. still tries to hunt and eat the only other living creature in his home desert, only to fail every single time for one reason or another. His running gag remains eternal: he still bases most of his bird-catching schemes on crappy purchases from Acme, whose sub-Sharper Image mail-order gimmickry falls on the quality spectrum somewhere between Ronco and Temu. Too bad they don’t get Amazon out in the desert. Heck, their Marketplace gizmos would probably be cheaper than Acme’s…not that this might matter, considering Wile E. never seems to have money troubles. What does he even do for a living to pay for his implements? Sell his plasma? Subsist on disability payments? Trap and sell smaller desert animals to zoos?

One night after yet another futile Road Runner pursuit and yet another flimsy equipment malfunction, a TV ad brings him inspiration: Will Forte (SNL, The Last Man on Earth) is Albuquerque attorney Kevin Avery, who just so happens to have the same haircut as another, more famous Albuquerque attorney who’s likewise prone to starring in cheesy TV ads and is played by someone who worked on SNL. But Kevin is no crafty shyster or drug-lord launderer: his practice specializes in suing makers of faulty products and being just enough of a minor nuisance to net his clients tiny settlements. But his new client isn’t complaining about a single defective purchase: he has a mountain of ’em, years of cumulative evidence of Acme’s malfeasance. The coyote might not be the brightest creature off the lone and level sands, but he refuses to settle. He wants to take them for everything.

One problem: Acme is the Warner Brothers of attack novelties: they’re a massive corporation with bottomless pockets and a fierce attorney of their own, played by Make-a-Wish superstar John Cena. And like all other evil corporations, especially like all the big-bads of every Erin Brockovich knockoff ever, they’re also hiding a deep, dark secret they don’t want exposed to the light of day. They mean to stop Our Heroes by any means necessary, and they’ll exploit every legal-thriller cliche if that’s what it takes to crush the little guy. BOOOOOO.

The familiar faces: Fellow attorneys at Forte’s firm include Lana Condor (X-Men: Apocalypse, Syfy’s Deadly Class) as the plucky intern who has to keep goading Kevin to do what’s right; Tone Bell (The United States vs. Billie Holiday); and Martha Kelly (Baskets, Fallout), whose every utterance is a delightfully deadpan bullseye.

P.J. Byrne (The Boys, A Complete Unknown) is Cena’s squishy sidekick. The judge presiding over the case is TV’s Luis Guzman. (I just recently watched his episodes of Narcos!) Other lawyers around include Kenneth Choi, a.k.a. the MCU’s Howling Commando Jim Morita. Any fellow Dark Winds fans out there should recognize Ryan Begay (Sheriff Leaphorn’s old pal Guy Atcitty!) manning a security checkpoint.

The animated all-star roster — just about every big-name Looney Tune, and numerous obscurer faces — are divided largely by gender between the versatile, veteran voice actors Eric Bauza and Candi Milo. One exception: the ubiquitous Jim Cummings handles a special whirl-by from the Tasmanian Devil.

The Impressions: Coyote vs. Acme follows in the hyperactive footsteps of Who Framed Roger Rabbit, unleashing three-dimensional cartoon characters into our live-action world — a creative path followed by surprisingly few films, most of which are underwhelming and/or dumbed-down to schoolkid-humor levels. (One rare great exception: the underrated 2022 Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers movie.) Green and his VFX crews employ a great deal of practical effects in that same spirit, though it’s understandable to note whenever they fall back on the sort of now-commonplace digital wizardry that didn’t exist in Robert Zemeckis’ day. Either way, the interactions between reality and unreality hold up throughout, from the ludicrous Rube Goldberg contraptions to the relentless background gags (denser and funnier at times than last year’s Naked Gun revival), and every zippy joke in between.

While kiddies giggle at the slapstick and explosions and antics and whatnot, older viewers can appreciate the spoof of thousands of courtroom dramas, particularly the ones where a disillusioned lawyer has lost their passion for their calling, butts heads with an idealistic youngster who has to change their mind every time they threaten to walk away, and finds renewed purpose through fighting for a lost cause (like, say, True Believer or Primal Fear or myriad others). The slowly unraveling conspiracy adds still another level of fun with a sinister project, a longtime cover-up, shocking developments, surprise witnesses, and so on. Admittedly the verdict and follow-through are kind of a letdown, written into a corner that the film doesn’t escape so much as it paints a hole on the floor and leaps down it.

Only a handful of other Looney Tunes favorites get comparable screen time, including Daffy Duck amuck again, Elmer Fudd gone into politics, and at least two former headliners on the wrong side of the courtroom. (Former fan-favorite Bugs Bunny, unbearably smug nearly every time he’s shown up since Roger Rabbit, is used just sparingly enough to clever effect.) But the heart of the film — and it does have one! — is Wile E. himself, that hapless nadir-predator who has to carry much of the narrative load here, even though he’s mute and communicating entirely in picket signs. (The one or two shorts where he called himself a “Super Genius” aren’t brought up, canon-wise.) For years we laughed at his self-destructive tendencies and the damage done by his quixotic chases of that singular obsession. It’s always been funny because he’s a loser, but he’s a loser who always bounces back to try, try again…and lose, lose again. For once we’re rooting for him because he might have found something to pursue besides his old quarry for his appetite’s sake.

And whither the Road Runner? The avian speedster eventually exits the southwest highways and joins the proceedings. Kevin tries summoning him as a witness for the defense, which goes as well as you can imagine. If Wile E.’s never been able to pin him down, let alone ask tremendous favors of him, what bait could possibly lure him into court? What possible reason could he have to ally with his lifelong would-be murderer? One of the neatest tricks the filmmakers pull off is assembling their own Rube Goldberg long-game that ultimately reframes the Coyote/Road Runner perpetual vicious cycle as a dysfunctional relationship, kinda like how Batman: The Killing Joke ends with Batman and the Joker laughing at the same punchline. Somehow even an awkward negotiation communicated only in wacky signage and indecipherable meep-meeps can find common ground, maybe evoke a tear or two if you’re weird enough to catch their drift.

The end credits? No, there’s no scene after the Coyote vs. Acme end credits, not even Porky Pig saying his usual closing line, which seems so wrong.

A couple minutes before the end, the filmmakers give extra-special thanks to fans “who posted, shared, held up signs or shouted” their support and helped this reach theaters despite its corporate overlords. As movies demanded by the internet masses go, Coyote vs. Acme was a far worthier use of everyone’s efforts than Snakes on a Plane.