From the (Sub) stacks: The Looney Tunes Take on Corporate Espionage in ‘Coyote vs. Acme’
In my last review I mentioned the particular joy that comes from watching a movie that should not work. But in Coyote vs. Acme, there’s another kind of exhilaration - a movie that somehow lives up to the hype.
There’s a special kind of glee to watching with the knowledge that the corporate shenanigans which tried to prevent this film’s release ultimately failed, especially when the movie in question is basically about corporate shenanigans. It’s this generation’s Who Framed Roger Rabbit, with the lighthearted approach of My Cousin Vinny thrown in for the legal drama genre.
You wouldn’t think legal speak would be a great segue into the zany world of the Road Runner and his carnivorous pursuer, but Coyote vs. Acme takes after its more obvious predecessor in ways that go beyond the mix of live action and animation visuals. Behind the wacky premise, Roger Rabbit is a movie about wish fulfillment and endings that could’ve been. By the end, the mystery is solved, the bad guy is vanquished, the highway doesn’t get built, and Los Angeles keeps the transportation system it had become world-renowned for.
Nowadays hiding from a far harsher reality in sunny illusions is a sell that’s practically doomed upon arrival, so there’s a different approach this time around. In Coyote, a corporation taking over nearly every aspect of life, cheerfully acknowledging that the law they helped write into existence is on their side, complete with a system rife with corruption and complicity on every level, is no reason for a legal procedural to not have a happy ending, even if it varies on what that entails.
