Space Jam is an untouchable movie for me. The original, starring His Airness himself, was the first film I ever owned on VHS – if you just had to Google that, I hate you – and it got me into basketball as a sport. Becoming a basketball fan – a Chicago Bulls fan, no less – in 1996 is as perfect an entry into the sport as you could wish for, and so I have a lot of fond memories of Space Jam. I haven’t watched it in years, because I don’t want to taint my memory of it. I know Michael Jordan isn’t much of an actor, that the film was as much about merchandising opportunities as it was storytelling, that the plot is hammy, and that the pacing is all over the place, giving us three movies in one and never sticking the landing with any of them. But I don’t care – it’s Space Jam, and therefore it’s great. Space Jam: A New Legacy, with the equally ropey acting skills of LeBron James, has a huge burden to bear, and it mostly bears it – at least, when it’s actually trying to.
The set up for both Space Jams are very different, and in many ways point to how corporate our world is becoming. In the original movie, Michael Jordan is playing golf, and when he reaches into the hole, he’s pulled into Tune World. It’s fast, it’s simple, and it lets us move on with the story. James’ arrival is far more complicated. He goes for a meeting with Warner Bros., and they explain to him that their internal algorithm (who doubles up as the movie’s villain) has suggested he be the star of all their new features. LeBron James meets Batman, who wouldn’t want that, right? Turns out LeBron doesn’t want that either – he sees it as a soulless cash grab, as an attempt to shove his marketable name into stories where it doesn’t belong, and doesn’t want these beloved characters to become – shudder – brands, to lose their magic in exchange for some big bucks and a basketball cameo.
Related: Rick & Morty Just Gave In To Its Own Worst ImpulsesThis is a solid critique of the entertainment industry at large, where everything is dominated by sequels, franchises, and cinematic universes. We’re getting fewer and fewer original ideas, and even when we stumble across them, they’re turned into franchises (The Quiet Place) or remade for new audiences (Parasite, Train to Busan). The critique quickly falls apart when you realise it’s happening in a sequel to Space Jam, of course, but it’s a good point nonetheless. The problem is Space Jam: A New Legacy does everything it can to grab onto as many properties as possible, and for huge chunks of the runtime, forgets to even be Space Jam.
Space Jam is good at precisely two things – showing humans in the Tune World, and showing the Looney Tunes playing basketball. When Space Jam: A New Legacy does this, it’s the exact same silly brilliant fun you remember. The issue is it doesn’t do this anywhere near enough.
When LeBron lands in Tune World, Bugs is the only one there. Luckily, Bugs is able to carry a scene on his own, so we still get the ACME slapstick fun. Once they start tracking the rest of the Looney Tunes down though, a load of pointless cameos get brought into the fray. Super Man, Wonder Woman, Mad Max, Austin Powers, The Matrix, and even Rick & Morty are all involved in the recruitment process, seemingly for no reason other than “Look, it’s that thing – now with Looney Tunes!”
Explain to me how this is any different from the Warner Bros. suits wanting to put LeBron James in Game of Thrones? Is the meeting at the start supposed to be ironic, with James’ objection to the further commodification of iconic entertainment properties meant to be the opinion the audience disagrees with. How many of Space Jam: A New Legacy’s target demographic have even seen Casablanca or The Matrix? I see a lot of people complaining that the movie is just one long commercial, but a commercial for what? No eight-year-old is going to beg their parents to buy them Casablanca on Blu-Ray because Yosemite Sam was the Sam playing it again in Space Jam. This isn’t an advert, it’s a flex. Warner Bros. is like the rich kid inviting all of its friends over to look at their action figures, but you’re not allowed to touch them because your fingers are too sticky. It’s not advertising anything, it’s just showing off.
Sure, seeing Wile E. Coyote as Immortan Joe is kind of cool, and I can understand that some of the people involved in writing those scenes and coming up with the cameos were those sticky-fingered children having fun playing in the toy box. But it never feels like it's in service of anything. I don't need my Looney Tunes movies to have deep thematic meaning, but I'd like there to be something more than just "What if this movie, but with a Looney Tunes character!"
Once we get on the court – which takes far too long – the movie settles down and delivers the popcorn fun it promised. I'll throw a spoiler alert out there, but I don't think anyone is going to be surprised to learn that LeBron's team wins. We know what's going to happen, but with the game taking on the arcade-style rules of James' son's video game (it's a subplot, one rushed to give us more time for Granny in The Matrix), it's even more Looney than the original movie was. Taz spins the court around, Roadrunner creates smokescreens, and Wile E. Coyote uses one of his patented inventions to score multiple buckets at once. Other NBA and WNBA stars get in on the fun too – Dame Lillard, known for his 'Dame Time' catchphrase becomes Chronos, the master of time, while 'Fear the Brow' Anthony Davis becomes a half bird, half man, designed around his famous eyebrows. Diana Taurasi, nicknamed 'White Mamba' by the late Kobe Bryant, becomes… well, you figure it out.
A feature length Looney Tunes basketball game would have been a bit much, but there's a clear split in how the movie spins its narrative. Once we hit the court, Space Jam: A New Legacy is all about the Looney Tunes and telling original, creative stories with the incredible cast it has at its disposal. Unfortunately, too much time before that is less about the Looney Tunes or the new characters as it is reminding us about stories that have already been told.
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