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"!
