Chuck Jones would be thrilled to bits.
When he and writer Michael Maltese co-created the Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote, for the 1949 Warner Bros. cartoon short “Fast and Furry-ous,” they likely thought this pairing would be a one-off.
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| Paige (Lana Condor) and her Uncle Kevin (Will Forte) are about the experience the chaos that results from even a seemingly innocuous ACME product ... and they'd also better be careful with what's inside that box. |
That ingenious tribute to the silent-movie slapstick efforts of Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd became — at the risk of citing the infamous oxymoron — an instant classic.
Jones went on to direct 25 more theatrical shorts featuring the doomed efforts of Carnivorous Vulgaris (the Coyote) to catch Accelleratii Incredibus (the Road Runner), up to 1980’s “Soup or Sonic.” While the first dozen or so arguably are funnier and more clever than what followed, as a whole it’s still an awesome body of work.
I’m therefore delighted to report that director Dave Green and his team of writers — Samy Burch, James Gunn and Jeremy Slater, inspired by Ian Frazer’s hilariously deadpan 1990 humor piece in The New Yorker — have faithfully adhered to Jones’ wit, style and frenetic comedy pacing with this phantastic feature film.
Full disclosure: What follows is an unapologetic and shamelessly biased five-star review by someone who has, from the moment I was old enough to appreciate his work, long worshipped at the altar of All Things Chuck Jones ... and I now have no trouble adding this marvelously chaotic blend of live action and animation to that pantheon of cartoon comedy.
The premise here is as golden as it is simple. After the film opens on Wile E.’s most recent attempts to catch his prey — each failing, due (as always) to faulty engineering — the Coyote finally realizes that the blame, all these years, is not his. No, he has been the victim of dangerously defective ACME products.
The obvious solution: a product liability lawsuit.
But something even more sinister is afoot here. A prologue reveals that longtime ACME scientist Dr. Lorre — an intentional caricature of Peter Lorre, one of numerous movie stars lampooned in early Looney Tunes and Merry Melodies shorts — has become convinced that the work he has been doing, on the clandestine “Project Sisyphus,” is unacceptably dangerous. He manages to box up one mysterious item before being caught and — true to ACME form — forced to step into a small circular black hole. He vanishes, after which the hole is carefully rolled up and placed in storage (!).
Elsewhere, having executed the first part of his blueprinted plan — “Travel to city” — Wile E. lands in the office of dweebish storefront defense attorney Kevin Avery (Will Forte). His customary modus operandi, with the approval of partners Sal Maltese (Tone Bell) and Dottie Jones (Martha Kelly), is to settle quickly and move on.
Mistakenly believing that Wile E. is unhappy solely with the rocket-powered skates that most recently failed him — a reasonable assumption, since the Coyote “speaks” only via hand-held signs — Avery promises a fast low-three-figure check.
But this deeply disappoints his niece, Paige (Lana Condor), currently interning with the firm, who views this knee-jerk move as a cop-out. It also enrages Wile E., who — via cartoon magic — opens a satchel which then fills the entire office with hundreds of failed ACME products.
Paige encourages Kevin to think much, much bigger ... but he’s reluctant to do so, because that would mean a courtroom duel with former law school nemesis-turned-head ACME legal counsel Buddy Crane (John Cena), who Never. Loses. A. Case.
Cena has had great fun, over the years, playing a series of slimy, condescending bad guys, but his work here is on an entirely new level of smug villainy. Poor Kevin seems hopelessly outgunned from the start. Who can he call as defense witnesses? The only individual present during all of Wile E.’s mishaps is the Road Runner ... who, true to form, remains uncatchable by defense or prosecution.
On top of which, ACME has become a powerful corporation beloved for the technology that has improved human existence in every conceivable fashion. CEO Foghorn Leghorn is a much admired and respected figure in the Southern gentleman/Col. Sanders mold.
But something about the Coyote’s never-quit spirit begins to influence Kevin ... particularly when he goes through his files, and is shamed by the scores of previous cases brought by various cartoon characters against ACME, all of which he settled for paltry sums. Collectively, they certainly suggest a pattern...
What follows is Kevin and Paige’s hilariously frantic dive into the wacky realm of cartoon physics, with Green and his writers having just as much fun as everybody involved with 1988’s Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Along the way, this new film rigorously follows the “rules” Jones established for his Road Runner/Coyote shorts, most notably these two crucial ones:
• The Coyote remains a silent figure, which augments the endearing — and sometimes heartbreaking — pathos that forever hovers over him, like a storm cloud; and
• Gravity remains Wile E.’s greatest enemy, because it, too, inevitably fails to function properly ... until he notices, at which point gravity suddenly reverts to proper behavior.
While Green and editor Carsten Kurpanek stage and pace the frenetic action scenes for maximum hilarity, the film also becomes endearing, even heartbreaking, as Kevin’s uphill battle wanders into Frank Capra/James Stewart territory, with strong nods to Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.
Forte is note-perfect as the initially overwhelmed, but stubbornly plucky Kevin, increasingly motivated by Wile E.’s forlorn, hopeful and trusting expressions and body language. Their slowly developing bond comes amid all manner of craziness, particularly when Coyote winds up staying in the seedy motel room adjacent to Kevin’s “temporary” living quarters.
Condor’s Paige is appropriately plucky, high-spirited and determined. P.J. Byrne is a stitch as Buddy’s hapless legal assistant, and Luis Guzmán has an amusing cameo as Judge Troppogrosso, who wields a cartoon mallet.
I wish Bell and Kelly had brought more to the party; their characters are under-utilized, with Dottie delivering little more than stoic one-liners.
Longtime cartoon fans will marvel at the animated supporting cast, because virtually all Warner Bros. cartoon characters — including many not seen since the 1930s and ’40s — are granted roles large and small. The amazing Canadian voice actor Eric Bauza delivers perfect renditions of Dr. Lorre, Daffy Duck, Elmer Fudd, Foghorn Leghorn, Porky Pig, Tweety Bird, Road Runner and a certain mysterious rabbit who does his best to supply Kevin with valuable intel.
Composer Steven Price’s lively, often frantic orchestral score assiduously follows the energetic template established by Carl Stalling, in the classic Warner Bros. cartoons.
In sum, what’s not to love? This film is everything a longtime animation fan could wish for; it’s absolutely the best at what it set out to be.
Having now experienced this masterpiece in all its glory, I’m even more enraged by the fact that Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav infamously shelved it back in November 2023 — when completely finished! — simply to claim a $30 million tax write-off. To say that backlash was severe is a massive understatement, but it still took almost three years to pry the film from Zaslav’s controlling fingers (a process thoroughly detailed in this recent Los Angeles Times article).
The icing on the cake? It’s doing quite well at the box office.
And th-th-th-th-that’s all, folks!
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