If you watched Saturday morning cartoons during your childhood, then you MUST understand the premise of this story, just from its title. The action takes place in and around Albuquerque, New Mexico. (Where else could it be?) Here, for the story's purposes today, the city is a diverse community made up of both humans and cartoon characters. Everyone is accepted as a friend or a colleague, no matter how they were created.

The local law firm of Avery, Jones, and Maltese generally takes on just small cases of cartoon accidents. Head partner Kevin Avery (Will Forte) prefers to settle out of court, for small amounts of money. His colleagues Dottie Jones (Martha Kelly) and Sal Maltese (Tone Bell) follow his lead. But Paige Avery (Lana Condor) is Kevin's niece, and she's doing a legal internship with her uncle's firm. She's been taught differently, and she wants to make an impact, to make a difference, to do the right thing.

So when Wile E. Coyote wants to hire the firm to bring a huge negligence suit against ACME for injuries sustained by damages from hundreds of defective products, Paige sees the case as a great opportunity for the firm. Kevin remains reluctant. But eventually, the paperwork for a major lawsuit is filed. Kevin DOES have to face ACME CEO Foghorn Leghorn (voiced by Eric Bauza) and his savvy legal counsel, Buddy Crane (John Cena), in the courtroom and, later, even before Congress. What will be the outcome?

The film takes its inspiration from a short story written by American humorist Ian Frazier. It first appeared in the Feb. 19, 1990, issue of The New Yorker and has been included in several printed short-story collections ever since. In it, Frazier merely outlines the demands of the plaintiff through the fictitious opening statement of Wile E.'s attorney. Period. He doesn't predict the rest of the proceedings. His work therefore serves merely as a starting premise. Did anyone ask Frazier for advice on this account? I wonder.

Throughout the movie, we are shown the evidence of Wile E.'s frantic planning and his many misadventures with a variety of ACME products. He seems to attract explosions. (And because of proximity, a lot of them are now also hitting Kevin.) The coyote is always wounded as a result -- although, as a cartoon character, his injuries are immediately and magically resolved. Still, the sheer number of disasters takes its toll on him, both mentally and physically. Yet when I was in the fairly full theater on opening night, I heard many people laughing loudly whenever the coyote got hit on the head, got squashed or was catapulted over the edge of a cliff. Seeing a few of these mishaps during an original 10-minute cartoon is one thing. They can be amusing. Seeing them over and over again for the better part of a feature-length film, enhanced with current technology and for the purposes of proving the point, is quite another. It was exhausting at times. The coyote wasn't laughing, and neither was I. Enough already. Have I grown soft with my senior status?

Among the hundreds of other volumes in my home library, visitors will find these three books: That's Not All Folks! by Mel Blanc and Philip Bashe, Chuck Amuck: The Life & Times of an Animated Cartoonist by Chuck Jones, and Looney Tunes & Merrie Melodies: A Complete Illustrated Guide to the Warner Bros. Cartoons by Jerry Beck and Will Friedwald. Yes, I am a long-time Looney Tunes fan. I used to know many of the scripts by heart. During this movie, I DID laugh out loud when I saw the placard for Avery, Jones, and Maltese. The name of the firm is an obvious homage to three key directors of the original Looney Tunes productions: Tex Avery (1908-1980), Chuck Jones (1912-2002) and Michael Maltese (1908-1981). Fans will know this. It makes a nice, subtle connection between the original cartoons and this new storyline. And more characters from the Warner Brothers cartoon cast show up in different scenes here, too. It was good to see them again ... even though we can hear that they have new voices, and we can see that they are newly drawn.

My overall reaction to Coyote vs. ACME is mixed. It's complicated. I wanted to like it. I wanted to revisit my Looney Tunes friends and to remember who they were. I wanted Wile E. to have the chance to right the wrongs that were long bestowed upon him by an indifferent and impersonal corporation. I DID enjoy the interactions between the humans and the cartoon characters, especially the ones between Kevin and Wile E. We DID get humorous quips here. We DID get heartwarming moments.

But I think the simplicity and the crispness of the original cartoons were unduly overpowered by the animation and production techniques of the 21st century. It was too busy. Yes, a sort of resolution was achieved, but it turned out to be an anticlimactic one for me, in spite of the great effort. Was anyone better off at the end than they were at the beginning? Good question. Maybe this new story plays only for nostalgia, and not for logic or relevance. Given the opportunity, I would have done the production differently. I'm not sure how, but my interpretation would have been different.

Your results, of course, may vary. Especially if you are an avid fan of Who Framed Roger Rabbit?