“How Hard Could It Be to Catch a Bird?”
The first time I heard about Coyote vs. Acme, I was on board. It just sounded like so much fun. Then, there was the whole drama with Warner Bros. deciding to shelve it for a tax write off. So, I was thrilled when I heard that Ketchup Entertainment had bought the film, and I made a point of going to see it in the theater.
While the film is more live action than animated, we do have a good mix of animation in the real world. And it starts like a classic Coyote and Road Runner cartoon. Coyote is out to catch his dinner, Road Runner, and his latest Acme products do not work as he envisions them. When he goes home that night, defeated, he sees an ad from a lawyer who represents people like him, harmed by shoddy products.
So Coyote heads into Albuquerque, New Mexico to hire Kevin Avery (Will Forte). But Kevin just wants to go for the simple settlement, something that Coyote doesn’t want. Suddenly, Kevin finds himself going up again his law school nemesis, Buddy Crane (John Cena), in a case that is drawing national attention. Can he figure out how to win the case?
As I said earlier, this film is a mix of mostly live action with a little animation. But the animation looks wonderful. It’s more modern 3D, although they do have some fun nods to 2D animation. The effects are outstanding. It’s easy to buy what we are seeing on the screen. And the human actors do a fantastic job of making us believe this world is real.
And yes, many of the Looney Toons characters show up. Most have extended cameos to further the story. This is Coyote’s film, and that’s fine. But I did appreciate how the rest of the characters were used.
Anyone who goes to see the movie will have fun. There are plenty of laughs from start to finish. Yes, most of them are slapstick, but what would you expect? This is a movie that is having fun, and it invites us along for the ride. It knows it has one job, to entertain us, and it does it.
It is also refreshingly free of so much of the modern movie agenda. Yes, the movie is an allegory for one issue (I’m being vague so as to not spoil things), but it’s never preachy about it, and it’s an easy issue to agree with the movie on. While there is a mention or two of corporations being bad, in this case, Acme is pretty evil, so it works. Again, the movie is focused on entertaining us.
Yet, it does have some nice, tender moments near the end. These moments kind of snuck up on me, but they were well earned.
I mentioned earlier that the actors did a great job with the effects of the film. The acting overall was good. The characters were fairly broad, but that’s the writing. Likewise, the character arcs were fairly predictable, but I was having fun overall, so I didn’t care.
Coyote vs. Acme is the light comedy we don’t get much anymore. It’s not an event movie, but it’s a fun way to spend an hour and forty minutes. You won’t be sorry you gave it a chance.
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