Coyote Vs. ACME: A smash riot

Coyote Vs. ACME (2025) • View trailerFive stars (out of five); rated PG, for cartoon violenceAvailable via: Movie theatersBy Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 9.6.26Chuck 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. Paige (Lana Condor) and her Uncle Kevin (Will Forte) are about the experience thechaos that results from even a seemingly innocuous ACME product ... and they'd alsobetter be careful with what's inside that box.As if.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…