Coyote Falls (2010) Reviews

• At Last - A Hi-quality Road Runner and Coyote Cartoon!

  Benjamin_4062010-09-20

  When I heard that Warner Bros. Animation were producing a trio of 3-minute Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote theatrical shorts in CGI, I pondered how many Looney Tunes fans would prefer the classic Chuck Jones versions over the Friz Freleng and Robert McKimsversion and the lackluster 2003 short film, "Whizzard of Ow". But when I watched "Coyote Falls" in front of "Cats and Dogs: Revenge of Kitty Galore", I became totally astounded in a positive fashion as I noticed its qualitative merits. Chuck Jones' classic feel of the Road Runner and Coyote animation has been successfully translated into the CG realm, thanks to a Chuck Jones-dedicated film director Matthew O' Callaghan bent on bringing any cartoony style into CGI. Also, there are musical cues of Carl Stalling, in which everyone can recognize them right when they grow up with the Looney Tunes. Even stereoscopic 3-D is used effectively on gags, timing and pacing, aside from depth of field. When it comes to Friz Freleng or Robert McKimson on directing the Road Runner and Coyote shorts from the mid-1960s, he ignored the original RR&C template by Jones and chose to go onto a different take: A central idea of the cartoon as an gag instead of the other way round and Coyote's occasional successes on capturing his feathered nemesis. The result: those shorts turned out to be unfavorable and forgettable. But when it comes to Matt O' Callaghan, he did a tremendous job on not only centering a gag without breaking the true and original RR&C premise, but more importantly bringing a 3-minute RR&C cartoon (not 6 or 7 minutes as usual!) to the rank of Jones' RR&C cartoons as we all know. (If you don't believe me, just check out "Daffy Duck for President" and "Porky and Daffy: the William Tell Overture" and see the differences.) There are still more Road Runner and Coyote shorts, coming to theaters and the 2010 revamp of "the Looney Tunes Show", so let's hope they can be good as or better than "Coyote Falls"!

• Absolutely marvellous

  neil-4762010-08-05

  It may be arguable that a 3 minute film does not merit a review: Coyote Falls puts the lie to this. The Road Runner cartoons are misnamed - the Road Runner itself is merely a maguffin, because the cartoons are about the Coyote, and his indefatigable pursuit of an unachievable goal, and his unshakable resolution never to give up in the sure and certain knowledge that, even if he came up with the perfect plan, his personal universe would change reality so as to foil him. This was the very highest of high concept and, coupled with Chuck Jones' sublime visual sensibilities, created a series of traditional hand-drawn animation single reelers which offered a seemingly endless series of sight gags, without dialogue, all of which were variations on a theme. When Jones packed them in, Warner Bros turned out a few more in widescreen and with a drastically different design sense and approach to music. They didn't work. And so things remained. Now we have this new 3 minute Road Runner / Coyote short, in which Jones' design models have been translated into 3D CGI. The film is essentially a number of variations on, and consequences of, a single "plan" by the coyote, lovingly rendered into a beautiful CGI version of Jones' Road Runner universe, and delivered with the Jones panache accompanied by musical cues in the Carl Stalling style. And it makes full use of cinematic 3D. Now, if only it wasn't just 3 minutes! Somewhere in heaven, Chuck Jones is smiling.

• It's nice to see a CGI version of the Coyote and Roadrunner...but there are two serious problems with this project.

  MartinHafer2010-12-14

  It is nice to see the Coyote and Roadrunner return to the screen with this 3-D CGI film. However, there are two serious problems with this worthwhile project. First, it was shown before a horrible full-length film which few would endure in order to see "Coyote Falls"! Currently, "Cats & Dogs 2" is in the IMDb's Bottom 100 list--hardly an auspicious place to display this film! Second, at only about three minutes, it's just too short--especially as the average non-CGI version of the duo was usually about 7-8 minutes. Still, it's a nice START and I sure hope to see more in the future--more Looney Tunes shorts and hopefully a lot longer than 3 minutes! What I did see, however, was very good--much like the 1950s-60s version updated with state of the art modern animation.

• Good--But Too Short

  Hitchcoc2019-05-01

  Imagine everything that could go wrong with Wile E. Coyote trying to use a bungee cord and a high bridge to capture the Road Runner. As is always the case, what can go wrong, goes wrong. The problem with this is that three minutes is way too little time. We needed a few other Acme products come from UPS and allow our boy to further destroy himself.

• Positively surprised here

  Horst_In_Translation2017-06-18

  "Coyote Falls" is an American 3-minute cartoon from 2010 made by Matthew O'Callaghan and Tom Sheppard and both of them are fairly experienced in animation filmmaking, so maybe I should not be surprised that this very brief movie turned out nicely. No filler material, just one joke following the next as Coyote still has it for Road Runner. I must even say that I am not the very biggest fan of the old cartoons starring these two as gadget based animation is not exactly my favorite kind of comedy, but this new one here worked out pretty well. The scenes with the truck were about as funny as the bungee rope not being long enough and the ending is a nice tribute to the old days. It may not ooze greatness, but I thought this was quite a funny watch and the whimpering sound by Coyote near the end was almost heartbreaking. I always liked him more than Road Runner. No surprise at all this one got nominated for two prestigious awards (Annies, Visual Effects Society). It deserves the attention. Go see it and hopefully you will like it as much as I did.