“Relax. It’s a kid’s movie,” says the brainless mother who puts on “The Boss Baby” and “Arctic Dogs” for her six-year old children. This quote in the beginning of my review right there sums up Malcolm D. Lee’s completely ridiculous product placement extravaganza “Space Jam: A New Legacy” because it will be something parents would play for their children in the background on the 4K TV. From watching the trailers early this year, I was thinking that this could be a huge improvement over it’s highly overrated dated predecessor. I was wrong. A director as such from making the best “Barbershop” installment to making a sequel just as bad as it’s predecessor can tell you that Malcolm’s resume is messed up.
LeBron James takes Michael Jordan’s place as lead playing a father to his son Dom who like in LeBron’s character’s childhood in the opening of the film, wants to play video games instead of practicing Lebron’s sport, which is basketball. Of course the son defends his father’s decision by playing a video game at home that literally centers around a basketball game. The video game itself foreshadows what the basketball game is going to look like. The film’s first fifteen to twenty minutes is executed like a poor Disney Channel original movie like if it were called “LeBron’s Big Break” and it barely features any Looney Tunes characters other than a 8-bit version of Bugs Bunny! Guess what it features instead? More jokes involving people getting hit with their head by a basketball from an automatic basketball shooter. What joy.
Meanwhile, LeBron gets an invitation from his family to Warner Bros. Studios for what you may ask? LeBron believe it or not gets a film deal with the studio where he can star in any of Warner’s brands like “Game of Thrones” and “Harry Potter”. He disapproves of the idea towards the studio while his son Dom is openly interested in the concept. This leads to an argument in the studio’s hallway between LeBron and Dom because he wants Dom to pursue a basketball career.
The argument ends when both characters are in an elevator that leads them to a virtual reality universe called the “Server-Verse” by it’s artificial intelligence Al-G-Rhythm (played by Oscar-nominee Don Cheadle). Al-G tells LeBron that he needs to assemble a team made only by Warner Bros. fictional characters, which of course he gets sent to Tune World where the Looney Tunes are at. Al-G then starts to turn Dom against his father to help him upgrade his basketball skills thus kidnapping Dom from LeBron. If anyone is curious what Dom’s team is, it is a team created by Al-G himself called the Goon Squad. This means LeBron has to win the game with his team Tune Squad in order to not only get his son back, but also to not delete the Looney Tunes themselves permanently.
Malcolm D. Lee directs such an embarrassing and predictable sequel that feels like a copycat of every sports film from the 1990’s. Not only that, but also this film feels like an advertisement of Warner Bros. properties galore such as DC Comics and Game of Thrones that it sometimes lets it’s audience ignore the focus of the film. It’s almost two-hour run time truly represents its filthy flaws.
Of course, not everything in the film is bad obviously because the Looney Tunes are of course a charm to watch and seeing traditional 2D animation back was beyond glorious to watch. I’m not gonna lie that I jammed to the “Ghetto Superstar” needle drop in the opening scene. Even though I think it gets boggled down later in the film, I actually really liked the heartfelt father/son dynamic in the third act and it kind of got me emotional until horrific sports film cliches ruin it. I got a kick out of Lil’ Rel Howery as one of the announcers for the basketball game, too.
The negatives of course outweigh the positives in a predictable tug-of-war because the first two acts of this film is shoving the audience Warner Bros. products. To make a horrendous movie studio move in order to ignore the great voice cast talent of the Looney Tunes, they cast a well-known actress Zendaya instead of a voice actor like Kath Soucie to voice Lola Bunny because the greedy mustached Warner Bros. thinks this is going to cash out money more than recasting Kath Soucie.
Also, other than the well-acted father and son dynamic in the third act, LeBron James is clearly acting in this film to get a massive paycheck like Michael Jordan in the predecessor therefore acting like a piece of brown wood from Hobby Lobby. After the success of “Space Jam”, I think he is going to question himself that he was so good in Judd Apatow’s “Trainwreck” and needs to stick to being in comedies.
Although the film does not waste a lot of talent like Bill Murray and Danny DeVito in it’s predecessor, it does manage to waste Don Cheadle’s career entirely. He got me intrigued at first as the villainous Al-G-Rhythm, but he blew up like a whoopee cushion for me in it’s third act where he came off as one of those cringe-galore sports movie villains (Spoiler alert!).
This honestly could have been so much better as a fun and self-aware modern-day version of a highly overrated ’90’s film, but with “Space Jam: A New Legacy”, Warner Bros. stomped this potential like a huge juicy tomato by relying on nostalgia, intellectual property, and making this film as a commercial. For parents of all ages, if you are looking for a phenomenal recent kids film for both kids and adults, please watch “Wolfwalkers” and my favorite film of this year, “The Mitchells vs. the Machines”. Those movies are self-aware, creative and have a personality. Heck, go even watch the old “Looney Tunes” cartoons.
I warn everyone to not see both “Space Jam” films.
Grade: 3/10
