The Anvil Strikes Back: Coyote vs Acme is Warner Bros.' Best Mistake

Verdict: ★★★☆☆ (3/5 Stars)

If your childhood Saturday mornings were spent glued to the television waiting for an anvil to drop or a painted tunnel on a canyon wall to suddenly turn into solid rock, Coyote vs. Acme will hit you straight in the nostalgia. It is an affectionate, joke-dense love letter to classic Chuck Jones animation that treats its source material with genuine reverence.

The film is packed to the brim with sharp inside jokes, visual gags, and background Easter eggs for animation nerds. Little touches—down to the names of the legal firms involved and blink-and-you-miss-it callbacks to vintage blueprints and explosive brands—make the court battle feel organically woven into Looney Tunes lore. The law firm representing Wile E. Coyote is Avery, Jones & Maltese. It’s a direct tribute to the legendary Warner Bros. animation pioneers:

Tex Avery (legendary animator/director) Chuck Jones (director and co-creator of Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner) Michael Maltese (frequent writer/storyman who co-created the characters alongside Jones).

Hilariously, local cinemas seem utterly confused about who this movie is actually for, programming it almost exclusively in kiddie daytime matinee slots. Sitting in a 3:00 PM Friday screening, the auditorium wasn’t filled with toddlers wriggling in booster seats; it was an audience of about fifty adults laughing their heads off from opening credits to final gavel, with not a single child in sight.

The film isn't completely immune to gravity. It does get a little baggy at the start of the third act, dragging its feet slightly when the legal melodrama threatens to overpower the manic cartoon energy before pulling off a satisfying finale. But even when the courtroom plotting wobbles, the heart and humour carry it through.

What makes watching it even sweeter is the near-miraculous road it took to reach a screen at all. In late 2023, Warner Bros. made the cynical corporate decision to shelve the completed film entirely as a $30 million tax write-off, mirroring the fate of Batgirl. It took a massive outcry from the filmmaking community, public backlash from test-screening attendees, and passionate advocacy from creatives across Hollywood before the studio finally relented, shopped the distribution rights, and allowed audiences to actually experience it.

Knowing how close this was to gathering dust on a corporate server forever makes every laugh land that much harder. It may hit a slight lull near the end, but Coyote vs. Acme is a wildly fun blast from the past that deserved to see the light of day.