“Space Jam: A New Legacy” Review
LeBron James (Left) and Bugs Bunny lead the Looney Tunes in a basketball game in “Space Jam: A New Legacy.”
The original “Space Jam” is a truly remarkable film. The film went from being panned to celebrated as a classic, was many kids’ favorite film throughout the 90s and 2000s and made us all forget for 90 minutes that R. Kelly was a terrible person because when he sings “I Believe I Can Fly,” I’m just transported.
But I know, as someone who grew up with this film, that it’s a really silly film and there’s a lot to make fun of from the awful acting of the basketball players to the bizarre premise that only the “Extreme” era of the 90s could give us. And, after 25 years, the sequel, “Space Jam: A New Legacy” has given us the same levels of silliness that the original unapologetically had with the mad talents of Lebron James.
With LeBron James dominating the NBA, his youngest son Dom (Cedric Joe) feels that his father doesn’t respect his desire to design video games. When an evil algorithm in Warner Bros. Studios’ computer system, literally called Al-G Rhythm (Don Cheadle), kidnaps Dom to make Dom’s dreams come true and make himself more powerful, LeBron James must join forces with the Looney Tunes (of course), defeat Al-G Rhythm in a game of basketball and rescue his son.
Just like the first film, if you can buy the unbelievably ridiculous premise of this film, then you probably will enjoy it. And there certainly is much enjoyment to be found, especially when the film decides to forgo the real world and focus on LeBron James interacting with the Looney Tunes.
In the film, the Looney Tunes are part of the larger Warner Bros. Serververse which has all of the big franchises of Warner Bros. including “Game of Thrones,” “Harry Potter” and “DC Comics” and have left their Looney world to join the larger franchises which results in some pretty hilarious references and showcases the Looney Tunes with hilarious slapstick and bold verbal humor. For example, if seeing Wile E. Coyote and The Roadrunner in the world of “Mad Max: Fury Road” isn’t hilarious, I don’t know what is.
Unlike the first film, which had the main conflict with the Looney Tunes and Michael Jordan got pulled into the mess, here it’s the reverse which means there’s much more investment in LeBron James. His skills as an actor are what they are and, as he says in the film, athletes becoming actors never ends well (although I think John Cena, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar would disagree). But his comedic timing is actually pretty good.
And, to my delight, they actually raise the stakes with both James and the Looney Tunes facing deletion and the climatic game of basketball being just as exhilarating and fun. The filmmakers truly understand how much the original meant to people and what viewers want: a silly film with good humor and brilliant work on behalf of the Looney Tunes.
What I can’t abide is all of the product placement on behalf of Warner Bros. who seek to plaster their films all over the place in an attempt to let us know that they’re great. Every two minutes, the studio has posters of their biggest moneymakers plastered all over the place, even for films that haven’t come out like “The Suicide Squad,” and the studio is constantly trying to remind us that they own “Harry Potter” and “The Matrix.” This constant ego boost from Warner Bros. is more uncomfortable than anything.
Overall, what made the original “Space Jam” so unique was just how much of a product of the 90s it was. Based on the efforts of “Space Jam: A New Legacy,” it’s clear that this film is a product of the 2010s and enjoys the same silliness of the original. When Warner Bros. isn’t trying to cram their other properties down your throat, they produced a decent enough film with good humor.
