'Space Jam: A New Legacy' Review
PG: Some cartoon violence and some language
Runtime: 1 Hr and 55 Minutes
Production Companies: Warner Animation Group, Proximity Media, The SpringHill Company
Distributor: Warner Bros. Pictures
Director: Malcolm D. Lee
Writers: Juel Taylor, Tony Rettenmaier, Keenan Coogler, Terence Nance, Jesse Gordon, Celeste Ballard
Cast: LeBron James, Don Cheadle, Khris Davis, Sonequa Martin-Green, Jeff Bergman, Eric Bauza, Zendaya
Release Date: July 16, 2021
In Theaters and HBO Max
Superstar LeBron James and his young son, Dom, get trapped in digital space by a rogue AI. To get home safely, LeBron teams up with Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, and the rest of the Looney Tunes gang for a high-stakes basketball game against the AI's digitized champions of the court — a powered-up roster called the Goon Squad.
Don Cheadle is having the absolute time of his life as the film’s antagonist Al G. He portrays an algorithm in the Warner Bros. server-verse who kidnaps LeBron James and his son Dom Tron-style and challenges James to a basketball game in order to get his son back. Cheadle is exceptionally upbeat and lively with his performance from the moment he’s onscreen. Much like Wayne Knight in the original Space Jam, Cheadle runs laps around the central cast due to his charisma and outstanding comedic timing. He’s having so much fun being as looney, manic, and as frantic as the film itself. He’s Loonier than all the Tunes themselves, for whenever he’s onscreen he makes me either smile or laugh.
I must give credit where credit is due and admit this has to be the most visually spectacular film I’ve seen this year. The budget is clearly massive and the visual effect artists did their damndest to make every facet of this Warner Bros. digital world as expensive, colorful, and detailed as possible. The film does a good Sponge Out of Water-type switcheroo where the Tunes spend a good chunk of the film as 2D characters before their big game where they then make the jump to CGI. It was nice to see traditional 2D animation on the big screen again and for the most part, it’s pretty good. The film features a variety of veteran 2D animators who worked on Space Jam, The Iron Giant, and/or Looney Tunes: Back in Action and there are moments of smooth 2D movement that wowed me. It even plays with different art styles, one of the biggest highlights being a sequence where Lola Bunny undergoes a trial to become an Amazon warrior, delivered in a comic book art style. Even when it comes to the CG animation, the characters look absolutely incredible and their physics match their manic behavior while being impressively detailed. There was a clear effort to make this a visual stand out, but you know how the saying goes: beauty is skin deep. With that expression in mind, Space Jam: A New Legacy is ugly as fuck.
When I was in elementary school, the entire student body was forced to watch Space Jam in the auditorium after lunch nearly every day. From kindergarten to fifth grade, on days when we didn’t get to go outside and play, we had Space Jam to keep us company. It was my personal hell, yet I’d take that over this new movie any day. Sorry, did I say movie? I mean a goddamn near-two-hour commercial for WarnerMedia’s IP. Holy shit, I’ve never seen anything so egregiously soulless masked as a movie, from its setup to its content, that it makes me weep for the future of cinema. I just wanna go back in time and tell young Rendy, “Hey, it could’ve been worse. You could’ve been watching a movie where LeBron James and the Looney Tunes whore out promoting all the popular brands Warner Bros. owns without any self-awareness or wit.” Congratulations, Warner Bros. You managed to make a Space Jam movie worse than the original Space Jam.
I’ll admit there are aspects of this film that are a marginal improvement of the original. LeBron James is fully committed to the role and brings as much of his A-game as he can to be immersed with the Tunes. He actually has chemistry with the Looney Tunes. Though the fictionalized version of himself is written to have such straight-laced energy, it reflects his performance as well. He’s not good, but he’s trying. It’s everything surrounding LeBron and the Tunes that I hate.
The film takes place in the Warner Bros. “server-verse”, which is an obvious riff on Spider-Verse. LeBron and his son are transported after he rejects a pitch by a rogue algorithm to create a new and dangerous Warner Bros. app named “Warner 3000”. AI-G nabs Dom and sends LeBron to Tune world. Once an animated King James unites with Bugs Bunny, the two have to venture across all the WB worlds to get the rest of the Tune Squad for the big game. When it comes to movies ensnared in a corporate IP branding chokehold, the writers either emphasize being satirical and self-aware of where the Hollywood industry stands today (Teen Titans Go to the Movies) or be completely genuine and story-driven with incredible set pieces to compensate (Ralph Breaks the Internet, Ready Player One). A New Legacy stares into the eyes of capitalism and embraces it with open arms. With no satire or a lick of creativity to compensate, the movie desperately uses the backlog of Warner Bros. IP, recognizable memes/internet jokes, and dated humor in an attempt to be hip and current instead of… I don’t know… letting the Looney Tunes be themselves.
Once the second act begins and Bugs and LeBron venture off in Marvin the Martian’s spaceship to track the Tunes who secluded themselves in other Warner Bros. worlds (which are simply clips from other movies with Looney Tunes characters thrown in as a cheap gag), the corporate hamming jumps straight to ten to an extent where I both cringed and wondered who the fuck this movie even made for. Even if HBO Max didn’t exist, it’s still some soulless shit watching this company shamelessly jingle its brands in your face. I couldn’t help but hear the voice of James Franco in Spring Breakers as the faint voice of Warner Bros. going, “Look at my shit! Look at my shit!” And you know they went for the most popular and recent brands because a good chunk of the worlds are derived from adult properties. It’s gonna alienate kids because they don’t know what The Matrix, Mad Max, Austin Powers, or Game of Thrones are and you ain’t gonna show that to them either. Warner Bros. is a company that owns Cartoon Network, which plays Looney Tunes cartoons and for some reason, the only other cartoon appearance comes from the Adult Swim block. It genuinely feels like an algorithm decided which WB-based properties get to appear in this film, entirely based on popularity because you can easily guess which Adult Swim property made the cut. Hint: it’s the most popular animated series right now. It’s literally their answer to Disney owning The Simpsons.
Much like The Spongebob Movie: Sponge On the Run from earlier this year, this is an angering pale imitation of a beloved properties’ former glory written and crafted by people who simply don’t understand it anymore. Outside of some classic iconic lines or the basic 101 gags, it thoroughly feels like it's written by people who don’t even understand nor respect Looney Tunes. The only funny aspects are Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner who get the best gags throughout. I can’t believe I’m saying this shit, but there was a genuine timely factor to the original Space Jam where it tried to deliver on its own merits without trying to be too hip or sell out WB’s other properties. There weren’t any sequences of Porky Pig rapping, Bugs Bunny doing the hammer dance, or Granny saying “haters gonna hate”. This is the equivalent of some out-of-touch Warner Bros. exec looking at those bootleg Looney Tunes hip-hop designs you see in malls and instead of sticking their nose in the air and being like, “Come on, we have actual integrity,” they went, “Yo, we gotta capitalize on this. It's hip these days.” When an animator has to draw fucking Big Chungus, which appears in this movie during Bugs Bunny’s introductory scene, you know it’s a sad ass day for Hollywood.
I really tried to give this movie the benefit of the doubt because it’s visually beautiful and benefits from being slightly fun during the basketball game. But the fact that it pushes the two-hour runtime and had ample sequences that made me question the state of Hollywood today made this such an excruciating experience. We are living in a time where media based on commercials, such as the movie Uncle Drew and the hit Apple TV+ series Ted Lasso, can evolve and become something of their own that is GOOD. A New Legacy does the reverse where it goes full circle to become a whole ass commercial for HBO Max. It doesn’t help that having these new WB movies launch on the platform simultaneously with a theatrical release is still in effect. So, when you’re done watching this two-hour HBO Max commercial, why don’t you stay on the platform and watch all the WB IP-owned shit you’ve just had forced down your throat? God, I’ve never seen a movie like Space Jam: A New Legacy, and I hope I never see anything like this forced, shameless, commercialized bullshit ever again in my life.
