Review: Fanged and funny, 'Coyote vs. Acme' gives audiences the last and loudest laugh

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Set us as preferred “Coyote vs.Acme” speaks volumes without saying a word.

Wile E.Coyote conveys his hunger in a glower.

The Roadrunner celebrates his escape with a “beep beep.” And next to the opening Warner Bros.logo, there’s an asterisk that reads, “A wholly owned subsidiary of the Acme Corporation.” As in, the bad guys of the film.Harry, Albert, and Jack Warner purchased Looney Tunes in the 1940s just as the cartoon franchise was entering its prime.

Today, the studio is run by the conglomerate Warner Bros.Discovery; tomorrow, that might metastasize into Paramount-WBD.

The Warners weren’t saints (boy, are there stories about Jack), but I suspect they’d see that asterisk as a black mark on their reputation for green-lighting punkish crowd-pleasers while laughing their tails off at “Coyote vs.Acme’s” anarchic humor, as I did.

The studio’s current leadership canceled the film’s release for a tax break.Upon protest, Warner Bros.

reversed course and sold the movie, which did little to allay concerns that its favorite creatives are accountants.Instead, “Coyote vs.Acme” is being distributed by Ketchup Entertainment, which also released last summer’s “The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie.” That one bungled the tone: Porky Pig twerked.

But “Coyote” director Dave Green nails it.Working with screenwriter Samy Burch (of Todd Haynes’ twisted thriller “May December” — talk about range), he’s made a brisk comedy that looks, sounds and entertains just like a proper Looney Tunes feature.

In salute, they’ve named their movie’s fictional law firm Avery, Jones and Maltese, as in animation legends Tex, Chuck and Michael, the latter of whom wrote the classic short “What’s Opera, Doc?” that stuck Bugs Bunny in blond braids and a bra.Here in this alt-world Albuquerque, 2D creatures coexist with mundane strip malls.

Porky Pig and Daffy Duck aren’t cele...