Coyote Vs. ACME
I will start this off by noting that I am not a big movie-watcher. The last time I stepped in a theatre, it was 2020 and I made the poor decision to watch Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. I can easily say that it was the worst film I've ever seen — an embarrassing waste of time. It managed to undershoot my abysmally low expectations by such a wide margin, that I refuse to believe it was anything more than a rough, first draft rushed through production to meet a schedule.
Then there was that whole global pandemic thing. That swiftly ended my attempt to get back into regularly going to the theatre.
It feels as though most current movies have nothing to offer me. I was done with superhero movies by the second Iron Man release, and the post-Avengers: Endgame slate has looked like absolute garbage — even in the context of Things That Aren't For Me.
It seems like almost everything is either too long and / or lazily based off an existing franchise. I don't need to know about Cruella DeVille's trauma, and I have serious reservations about anyone who does! Why are they making a prequel to A Christmas Carol, about Ebeneezer Scrooge?! But I digress...
My first encounter with Coyote vs. ACME was reading about Warner Brothers scrapping the movie after it was completed, for a tax writeoff. They had originally planned to destroy it, before Ketchup Entertainment bought the distribution rights.
At face value, the notion of destroying a feature-length film after it's already been completed is absurd. In hindsight, it's even more ridiculous because the movie was great!
The combination of live actors and cartoons was incredibly well done, harkening back to Who Framed Roger Rabbit. I grew up with Looney Toons re-runs being a staple of my chilhood through adolescence. Even now, I can watch those old shows — episodes I've seen literally hundreds of times — and they still crack me up. They have a timeless quality to them, and the older style of animation not only holds up but feels refreshing in a world overstuffed with generic, computer-generated slop.
Obviously Coyote vs. ACME features a lot of digital editing and modern production technology, but it still manages to capture the essence of the original cartoons. Not only do the characters look right, they feel right. There are a couple of moments where the coyote's despair is genuinely moving; I can't give the animation team enough credit.
This movie hits every item on my checklist: it was fun, had a concise running time, and it didn't feel like mass-produced slop made with the intention of milking an IP franchise first and telling a story second. I'm not saying I want a lot more movies exactly like Coyote vs. ACME, but it would be nice to see more projects made by people who clearly care about the material.
PUBLISHED: 2026-09-01