So after that last review, I think it’s time to talk about a much more pleasant and less unsettling piece of 90’s nostalgia, that being Space Jam. If you were a certain age, this felt like an event, as it was fans of animation and sports sharing a weird bond. It wasn’t a great, classic work of art or anything like Roger Rabbit or a Miyazaki film, but that wasn’t its objective.
Michael Jordan was on a level of fame reserved for only a small number of athletes like Babe Ruth and Muhammad Ali in terms of his cultural/marketing influence, and his “Hare Jordan” Nike commercials were enough of a hit to make an entire film loosely based on them. This time, superstar LeBron James steps onto the court in his take on the formula, and he’s just as if not more eager to work with the Looney Tunes.
Space Jam: A New Legacy is a movie that knows exactly what it wants to do and isn’t interesting in branching much beyond that. It has much of the same style of bonkers basketball action from the first film you’d want, but there were a few interesting differences in how the Tunes themselves were depicted.
Whereas the human conflict in the first Space Jam revolved around Jordan looking to figure out what he wanted to do with his post-retirement life, A New Legacy puts more attention on what’s a deeper conflict with LeBron’s family relationship. If nothing else, there’s a clearer arc of character development for the NBA star this time, who’s so caught up in trying to train his sons in basketball he doesn’t have much time for genuine father-son bonding. His son Dom (Cedric Joe) is having trouble connecting to his dad, being more into designing video games, which as shown in flashback was a fluffy distraction for the younger LeBron when his Bugs Bunny game cost him in a crucial high school match.
The evil alien Swackhammer’s not the villain this time, instead it’s a Warner Bros. supercomputer Al G. Rhythm, played by Don Cheadle who’s eating up scenery left and right. He’s the digital overseer of WB’s “ServerVerse” where all of the company’s characters and stories reside, and he’s not happy about LeBron turning down a potential Game of Thrones crossover (LeBron of Thrones). In revenge for his efforts going unappreciated, he manipulates the equally frustrated Dom into designing his own game and trapping the LeBrons into his server.
If LeBron and his Tune friends win, they go home, but if Dom and Al G. win then all their family and friends will be trapped there forever. Between this guy and the supercomputer from Mitchells vs the Machines having an emotional breakdown over feeling neglected by Eric Andre, I’m starting to wonder if we should be nicer to these powerful A.Is.
When LeBron meets Bugs, there’s a brief exchange about how Al G. manipulated the Tunes into leaving for other WB shows and films. Now this is of course just part of the story’s marketing, but Bugs (whos voiced quite well by Jeff Bergman) mentions how his friends “forgot who they were” and when he’s scrolling through the list of Tunes to bring on board the team, he briefly has this very sorrowful look on his face.
This I think was maybe one of the bigger missed opportunities in this movie. I’m not asking for this film to become some deep drama, but I thought “hang on, that could be a potentially interesting angle”, the story exploring why Porky, Sylvester, Elmer and the others would want to leave Looney Tune land. Maybe Bugs could do some self-reflecting, they could go deeper into the relationships between the Tunes, who knows? Lots of possibilities on the table there, and it’s a bit unfortunate that was resolved so quickly.
In some ways, this comes off like a true “pandemic era” movie. HBO Max is very eager to get its IPs on display, so there’s definitely a strong sense of advertising throughout the story with Bugs and LeBron recruiting the other Tunes from various WB properties like The Matrix, Batman, and so on. I’m sure it would have been fine enough on a big screen, but it comes off as if it was made with streaming in mind. And while you generally aren’t going to get super-deep or Academy Award-winning moments from the Looney Tunes (What’s Opera Doc aside), all of the referential humor eventually feel like it’s getting in the way of some potentially interesting exchanges between the main cast.
Now and then Lola Bunny (voiced adorably by Zendaya) would genuinely express to LeBron how much she wanted to help save his son, and I thought to myself “awww.” I wanted more moments like that. In fact, I felt the script could have used a bit more “Looney Tunes Show” style touches in its writing, which I always felt was an underrated look at the Tunes as it added to their characters some. Bugs was more easily gotten to and could be on the defensive in more situations, Daffy was even more neurotic and insecure, and Lola was more of a lovable ditz than the more girl power-focused type she is in the Space Jam series,.
(Note: I can’t even with that ridiculous controversy about Lola’s design. IMO, Saberspark had a great video about the topic that summed everything up better than I could.)
Also, this movie aesthetically is an extremely colorful sugar rush, and I’m not talking about the Wreck-It-Ralph game (which I think is probably the best movie based around popular characters and brands in an online space. Ready Player One and Ralph Breaks the Internet would be somewhere in the middle, and Emoji Movie is still the worst). You can’t say Warner Bros. doesn’t know what demographic they’re aiming at. (The angry expression Bugs has when he’s morphed by Al G. from hand-drawn to CGI made me snort with laughter a bit. He’s like “how *dare* you make me fuzzier!”)
If I could compare Space Jam: A New Legacy to a type of food, it’d be cotton candy with colorful swirls around it. You know it’s not healthy or anywhere near high-class dining, but you don’t care and you just want some sweets in your mouth that moment. A movie like this obviously isn’t going to feel as groundbreaking post-Infinity War, when the 2010s were such a golden age for big crossover works.
I’ll certainly say that director Malcolm D. Lee ups things in the heart department, I found myself getting invested in this version’s ending a bit more than the 1996 version (which is always going to be a guilty pleasure for me). And LeBron does display some nice charisma, with a good moral in his storyline about not forgetting to enjoy yourself while self-improving (Bugs and James find themselves differing on a “fundamentals vs. fun” debate) and taking care of the people closest to you. It’s nothing profound, but I think it’ll pick up its own cult following over time much like the first one.
But what did you think? If you loved it or hated it, come on and slam your opinion and walk to the jam at FAN’s social media spots!