Delayed and nearly canceled, there’s a poetic nature to how Coyote vs. Acme‘s story reflects a troubled release, given that it’s about a corporation silencing voices. But even without that unintentional association, the movie is genuinely entertaining for the same reasons as the previous Looney Tunes movie, The Day Earth Blew Up (also buried by Warner Bros and rescued by Ketchup Entertainment). While that previous movie embraced a throwback sci-fi B-movie, this animation/live-action hybrid uses the Looney Tunes ingredients to craft a legal thriller, more fitting for the characters than an excuse to play genre dress-up.

The story itself is simple to explain, but complex in its intricacies. The cartoon character Wile E. Coyote has grown weary of his never-ending chase with the Roadrunner that always ends in slapstick disaster. Figuring the culprit behind his misfortune lies in the Acme Corporation he keeps buying his gizmos from, the battered coyote takes his case to court. Unfortunately, he’s facing an uphill battle more brutal than the hill in the desert with giant tumbling boulders. The only lawyer willing to represent cartoon characters for such accidents is Kevin Avery (Will Forte), a loser of an attorney who settles for low offers. He doesn’t want to go head-to-head with the more intimidating Acme lawyer, Buddy Crane (John Cena). But through his mischievous nature and the conspiring Coyote, alongside Kevin’s plucky protégé niece Paige (Lana Condor), it isn’t long before the big trial is on and a conspiracy is unearthed.

The team behind this production, led by director Dave Green, fully grasp that what made Looney Tunes so hilarious was not the slapstick, but the cleverness. Other cartoon studios of the golden age could always be relied upon for physical gags, but only the Termite Terrace collective knew how to do so with witty zingers, knowing nods, and sly punchlines. The most amusing aspect of Coyote vs. Acme is how perfectly it fuses its wild antics of exploding dynamite and warped cartoon characters into a rather serious thriller of corporate correction and dangerous courtroom cases. Avery and Coyote might be facing off against a business that makes people disappear, but they’ll do with cartoon boulders and painted-on holes in the ground.

The Looney Tunes players are used more creatively in this plot, serving specific roles well. While the Coyote and Roadrunner are more or less the same cat-and-mouse figures they were in their many chases, other familiar characters take on more unique personas. This includes Forghorn Leghorn as Acme’s pompous lead executive, Tweety Bird as a capitulating corporate agent, and Bugs Bunny as a Deep Throat-style informant, hilariously staging him as a mysterious figure that nobody can pin down based on his voice and catchphrase. There’s faith in this presentation; the characters don’t have to try too hard for jokes, evoking the same devotion to a serious script as Who Framed Roger Rabbit. This is a film where Luis Guzmán doesn’t try too hard for gags as the no-nonsense judge; he takes his job seriously and fits neatly for his scenes where he’s expected to bang a cartoony gavel that makes a squeaky sound as he quiets the court.

By committing to the legal thriller premise, it’s easy to get lost in the story amid the hybrid of mediums. There are rarely distracting moments with the compositing of the cartoon characters among humans that toy with cartoon objects. It makes the connection between the characters more engaging than just having all the humans stand aside while the chaos unfolds. There’s a great dynamic between Avery and Coyote as losers who grapple with their own ambitions that might derail an important court case in cartoon history. Part of what sells that drama is a fully realized world, where Avery will cite how a previous cartoon case made the chasing of another character a recognized profession. It’s especially impressive watching Avery’s frustration with Coyote, a character who only speaks through worded signs, and feel something for their feud over how to handle corrupt lawyers and corporate assassinations. This is far from the likes of Space Jam, where it felt like the cartoons and humans had to stay strictly in their own lanes. Here, everybody is an important player in a picture of dark secrets and cartoony conventions.

With a thoughtful script by Samy Burch (May December), this is a Looney Tunes movie that manages to stay true to the zippy nature of the characters while also embracing a surprisingly serious and thematically fascinating story. At the heart of this tale is the rationalized cruelty of the status quo and throwing your own people under the bus when gripped by greedy forces. A cartoon bus with a silly splat sound effect, but the point is no less resonant for how cases against abusive corporations are difficult to pose, let alone win. And just as with The Day the Earth Blew Up, there’s another emotional moment that gets to the heart of the dynamic between paired-up cartoon characters, aiming to evoke tears over the wackiest of rivalries.

Coyote vs. Acme makes a compelling case for why the Looney Tunes are clever and charming enough to warrant more than meta commentary and basketball games. Aside from a few in-jokes for cartoon geeks (the law firm of Avery, Jones, and Maltese being a reference to classic Looney Tunes creatives), the film never feels like it’s a prisoner to pop culture, where the anthropomorphic ensemble doesn’t have to contort themselves to fit into different movies. They’ve had a century of various scenarios that have played well for their brand of comedy and charisma, still holding up in this latest and greatest iteration. To think that this movie was almost lost for the purposes of taxes makes the David-and-Goliath drama all the more exciting and meaningful. The movie might start with the textual gag of “Based on a True Story,” but there’s a truth present amid all the falling pianos and exploding cartoon rockets, proving to an audience weary from Space Jam: A New Legacy, “That’s NOT all, folks!”

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