Ketchup Entertainment finally put Coyote vs Acme in theatres on August 28, 2026, and critics lost their minds. The film sits at 96% on the Tomatometer across 253 reviews, with a 95% audience score. Then a working pro wrestler watched it and shrugged.
On this week’s Wrestling Uncensored, “Genesis” Johnny North gave his verdict, and the Coyote vs Acme John Cena casting is the one thing he could not get past. Not the animation. Not the story. Not the years this thing spent buried on a Warner Bros. shelf as a tax write-off. The villain.
That matters more than it sounds, because Johnny is not a film critic taking a swing at a wrestler. He is a wrestler watching another wrestler work a heel role, and he came away saying it was phony. When the audience that knows heel work best says the heel is not working, that is worth ten paragraphs of Tomatometer.
🎯 Key Takeaways
- Johnny North’s verdict: “Just okay for a Looney Tunes movie,” despite a 96% critics score.
- The problem is Cena: Johnny called him “a horrible villain” whose performance came off “horribly cheesy.”
- The wrestling tell: Johnny says Cena was doing Vince McMahon at some points and JBL at others, and neither landed.
- Will Forte saves it: Johnny credits Forte as the reason the film works at all.
- The hook was the scandal: Johnny only watched because of the shelving controversy, not the marketing.
Table of Contents
Johnny North Gives the Film a Qualified Pass
Johnny’s headline take was not a burial. “I thought it was just okay for a Looney Tunes movie,” he said, and the thing he liked most was structural. The film commits to a single world where live-action humans and animated characters share the same space, and it never breaks that rule.
His reference point was the obvious one, and the right one. “I enjoyed the fact that it kind of played a lot like Who Framed Roger Rabbit, where it’s the world of real humans and animated at the same time,” he said. “If it was just animated, or if they flip-flopped, they didn’t do that. They just stayed consistent with it. That’s the way to do it, I think, for these kinds of movies.”
He also liked the deep-bench approach to the Looney Tunes roster. Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner carry the picture while Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck sit in the background, and Johnny thought that was the smarter call. “You can play more into their story,” he said, “and you have Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck, but they’re more like background characters almost in this.” His verdict on the story itself: “Overall, the story is pretty decent. I actually wouldn’t mind more of this.”
The Coyote vs Acme John Cena Casting Is Where It Falls Apart
The John Cena villain assignment here is Buddy Crane, the Acme corporate counsel standing between Wile E. Coyote and his day in court. On paper, that is a gift of a role for a 17-time world champion who spent the back half of his WWE run learning to be hated. In practice, Johnny was not buying a second of it.
“I was not a fan of the villain of the film. He’s a horrible villain, he’s just horrible, period. I feel like he was trying to be Vince McMahon at points, he was trying to be JBL at other points, and it just came off as really phony, like horribly cheesy.”
— “Genesis” Johnny North, Wrestling Uncensored, September 4, 2026
Read that again, because it is a specific technical criticism dressed up as a rant. Johnny is not saying Cena was bad. He is saying Cena was doing an impression of two other heels, and switching between them, instead of building one. Vince McMahon and JBL are both corporate-bully archetypes, and both of them worked because the man playing them believed it completely. Cena, in Johnny’s read, was reaching for the shape of it and missing the substance.
The cost was not limited to the villain’s scenes either. “I feel like he took away a lot from the movie, sadly,” Johnny said, which is the harshest thing anyone said about a 96% film on this show all year.
Will Forte Is the Reason It Works at All
The counterweight is Will Forte as Kevin Avery, the accident lawyer who takes the Coyote’s case against Acme. Johnny had to fish for the name in the moment, landing on MacGruber before he got there, but the assessment was unqualified once he did.
“He’s the main character of the whole movie besides obviously Coyote,” Johnny said. “He’s the main reason why the movie, I thought, was good. Cena really brought it down a lot, but he helped bring it up a lot, thankfully.” That is a film carried by one performance and dragged by another, which tracks with a picture reviewed at 96% that still left a wrestling fan cold on its antagonist.
The Shelving Scandal Sold the Ticket, Not the Trailer
Here is the part that should worry Ketchup Entertainment. Asked why he went at all, Johnny did not mention a trailer, a review, or a single piece of marketing.
“It was mainly just because of the controversy, actually,” he said. “They pulled this movie; it was going to come out, and then it didn’t come out, and, like, what’s the big controversy behind it? I guess they just felt like this wouldn’t sell, or wouldn’t make any sense, or whatever, or just wasn’t good, period.”
Warner Bros. shelved this film, took the write-off, and handed the industry a years-long news cycle about a Looney Tunes movie nobody had seen. The Coyote vs Acme reviews that eventually landed carry a 96% Tomatometer and a 95% audience score. The studio’s own judgment, in other words, was the movie’s worst review, and the fight to release it turned into better publicity than any campaign could have bought.
Reality Check: Cena Was Always a Babyface
The Reality: Dave Simon cut to it in one line: “Better babyface. We saw him as a heel, didn’t work.” WWE ran that experiment in front of millions of people and the verdict was the same one Johnny just delivered about a cartoon lawyer. Cena’s whole appeal is earnestness, and earnestness does not convert into menace just because you hand the man a suit and a corporate title. Hollywood keeps casting him as the bad guy because he is enormous and famous. The wrestling audience has already seen the tape.
The Verdict
Coyote vs Acme runs 1 hour 41 minutes, directed by Dave Green, written by Samy Burch, and by every conventional measure, it is a hit that should not exist. The critics are at 96%. The audience is at 95%. That Coyote vs Acme rating held up across 253 reviews, and the Coyote vs Acme cast around Forte is deeper than the marketing let on, with Lana Condor, Eric Bauza, and P.J. Byrne all in the mix. You can read the full Rotten Tomatoes breakdown if you want the consensus version.
The Coyote vs Acme John Cena problem is the asterisk on all of it, and it is the kind of asterisk only a wrestling audience notices. Johnny recommends the film. He also thinks a better villain turns a decent Looney Tunes movie into a genuinely good one, and he is right. Go see it, enjoy Forte, and count how many times Cena reaches for a promo he has already cut better somewhere else.
This is not the first time the show has taken a detour into the multiplex. Johnny’s Jackass: Best and Last review ran the same way, and the same instinct applies: wrestlers watch performance differently than critics do. For the rest of the September 4 episode, we broke down the AEW All In 2026 results and WWE’s Roman Reigns Bloodline problem. Johnny also has his own business to handle, with his RCW World Heavyweight Title challenge.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Coyote vs Acme worth watching?
Yes, with a caveat. The film holds a 96% Tomatometer score across 253 reviews and a 95% audience score. Wrestling Uncensored co-host Johnny North called it just okay for a Looney Tunes movie and still recommended it, crediting Will Forte for making it work.
Who plays the villain in Coyote vs Acme?
John Cena plays Buddy Crane, the Acme corporate counsel who opposes Wile E. Coyote and his lawyer in court. Will Forte plays Kevin Avery, the accident lawyer who takes the case.
What did Johnny North say about the Coyote vs Acme John Cena performance?
He was blunt about it. Johnny North said Cena was a horrible villain who seemed to be imitating Vince McMahon at some points and JBL at others, and that the performance came off really phony, like horribly cheesy, and took a lot away from the film.
Why was Coyote vs Acme shelved by Warner Bros?
Warner Bros. pulled the completed film and took it as a tax write-off rather than releasing it, which triggered years of industry backlash. Ketchup Entertainment eventually distributed it, and it reached theatres on August 28, 2026.
How long is Coyote vs Acme?
The film runs 1 hour and 41 minutes. Dave Green directed it, with Samy Burch on screenplay.
