Looney Tunes, the Warner Brothers shorts that first impacted popular culture with the force of a falling anvil in the 1930s, were once a staple of cinema bills, the knockabout appetisers to the main feature.

Elevated to the star attraction, the trials and tribulations (especially trials) of our iconic cartoon chums become a 24-carat comedy classic; a near century of outlandish capers distilled into an hour and three-quarters of pitch-perfect widescreen wackiness.

Evergreen animated friends Bugs, Daffy, Elmer Fudd, Yosemite Sam and many others, are all on board for the ride, but this is not their story; rather, it is a full-on delve into the psyche of an individual capable of expressing a lifetime of hunger, misery and hurt (especially hurt) in the raising of his canine eyebrows.

In the deserts of New Mexico, presumably not far from the state’s administrative hub Albuquerque, a lone beast is making ever more elaborate dinner plans; his name is Wile E Coyote, and he has an obsessive hankering for the sweet, tender flesh of a roadrunner.

Yet, time and time again his table remains bare, his oven unheated, because pursuits of the tasty entree are dashed by the faulty gadgetry of the supposedly innovative Acme corporation.

Rocket shoes misfire, catapults spring back and maim their owner, bombs fail to go off at the intended moment before clicking into explosive service when they’re least welcome - we’ve all been there, eh, readers?

The only solution is to head into town and find a legal wiz to sue the uncaring folk at Acme for every penny they’ve got.

Enter flesh-and-blood human Kevin Avery (Will Forte), a disheveled, low-rent personal injury lawyer coasting through life on small claims that are typically settled without the need for a court hearing, the bulk of his clients cartoon characters – Porky Pig would appear to have him on speed-dial.

Kevin isn’t too keen, though, not just because prolonged litigation is the polar opposite of his quick-fix day-to-day existence, but because anything more ambitious would require him to face his erstwhile law school nemesis, Acme’s lantern-jawed in-house chief attorney blowhard Buddy Crane (a delightfully pompous John Cena).

As the title suggests, Coyote vs Acme is a courtroom drama, but it’s also a conspiracy thriller, corporate satire, screwball farce, slapstick masterclass, and surprisingly touching bromance.

It had significantly more modest origins, as a short story by magazine humorist Ian Frazier in a 1990 issue of The New Yorker, and its subsequent 30-plus years passage to cinema has been a bumpy one.

Scripts, writers, producers and directors came and went in the quest to land on a workable premise to take to market, and even when all the requisite ducks were in a row the studio execs opted to put the brakes on letting folk see it, as part of an unrelated, larger and complex tax-minded calculation.

Frankly, that’s all nerdy minutiae only of interest to trade journalists tasked with reporting the business vagaries of Tinsel Town (you’re reading this via Radio Times, not the Financial Times); the bottom line is that it’s here now, and it’s a brilliant, affectionate, hoot-and-a-holler hilarious love poem to the madcap invention of bygone animation geniuses like Chuck Jones and Tex Avery.

Let us instead celebrate the ease with which cartoon and human create believable on-screen chemistry, the off-the-cuff subtlety of Forte in his exasperated exchanges with his furry client, or the pantomime face-to-face menace an angry Cena brings to threatening a three-inch canary.

Celebrate the chutzpah with which director Dave Green forensically studies the bashes, smashes and crashes from vintage cartoons and transposes them to real-life action, because he knows just how integral, essential, they are to any film that expects to appeal to generations of film-goers weened on the larger-than-life mayhem of Looney Tunes.

It’s hard to think of another comedy in recent years that delivers at least one top-drawer gag, verbal or visual, for every single minute of its running time, but Green and screenwriter Samy Burch pile on the funnies with the relish of cake decorators who’ve uncovered a loophole in their overtime contracts.

You’ll laugh ‘til your head falls off, maybe even shed a tear or two, and what more could you possibly want from a movie? That’s all, folks!

Coyote vs Acme is released in UK cinemas on Friday 21 August.

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