Let's face the reality, the original Space Jam movie released in 1996 is technically not good, Yet I still admit that I enjoy watching the movie from time to time in a so bad it's good kinda way. When it was announced that Warner Bro’s was doing a sequel that would star basketball legend, LeBron James, I had some concerns if it would be as fun or worse than its predecessor. I didn’t have high expectations when going in to watch Space Jam A New Legacy, but the result of my watching did leave some interesting impressions on me even if the result left me thinking it should have been more entertaining than it was given itself credit for.
An Evil digital entity called AI G Rhythm (Don Cheadle) decides to get his latest creation Warner 3000 more star power by kidnaping Basketball star LeBron James (Himself) and his son Dom (Cedric Joe) who don’t see eye to eye as Dom wants to make video games instead of play basketball like his father. LeBron then finds himself separated on stranded in the Loony Tunes world where he tries to get the help of Bug’s Bunny to find his missing crew to play in the ultimate basketball game which AI G Rhythm and Dom controls uniquely. Can LeBron and the Loony tunes beat AI G Rhythm and Dom at their own game before AI G Rhythm’s power becomes too strong?
Surprisingly this movie has much more of a story than the original movie did, but it’s sadly not a very impressive one. The main storyline of this movie is LeBron learning the importance of having fun and not being a strict father figure. This is a plotline I've seen in so many other bad family movies and it's unfortunately not given any care or love to make it feel fresh and interesting. They also try to take things more seriously at points in the movie which is puzzling seeing that the point of the original Space Jam was that the movie did not take itself seriously which made the first film fun. The movie is very keen on shoving in Warner Bro’s property references to drag out the run time. I’ll admit these references did get a chuckle out of me from time to time but it feels like Warner Bro’s is mainly trying to advertise without having any smartness with the writing as they did with The Lego Movie. It is cool to see some Warner bro’s characters in the background, but I wish they could have done something a little more creative with their cameos. With all that said though, I will admit that the final basketball game is rather engaging at times and I like how they change up the rules making the game feel more unique than even the one in the original Space Jam.
Lovable Characters was never a strong suit over the original Space Jam and its a shame to say they are worse in this movie than they were in the first film. LeBron James’s character arc feels very rushed and his character growth throughout the majority of the film doesn’t feel very satisfying. The Loony Tunes characters do have their highlights even if they may not be as weird and funny as they were in the original cartoons or even in the original Space Jam surprisingly. One of the movie's standout characters is AI-G Rhythm played by Don Cheadle who is most well known for being War Machine in the MCU movies. He’s not as threatening as the aliens in the previous film, but it feels like he’s the only character in the entire movie that is having fun playing the bad guy. It’s not like the characters in the original Space Jam are anything great but I do feel like their performances could have been a little loonier.
It has been decades since we saw the original film’s combination of live-action and 2D animation effects. This movie’s visual style tries to go even bigger with more stylized CGI visual effects that compliment the filmmaking styles of today. The 2D animation we do get to see is a nice refresher seeing that 2D animation in movies is not as common as it once was. There are even some great uses of 2D visualization such as the scene with Bugs convincing Lola to join the team as they use a style that is similar to reading a comic book (Granted, Spiderverse did this a 1000 times better but that’s beside the point) the CGI effects are more plentiful than they were in the original film and needless to say they give this movie an identity that separates its visual style from the original movie. The best examples of using the CGI technology to the film's advantage are showing off the server verse or how unique the basketball game is with different creative characters and their powerups. Some things I wish they could have done differently is that they kept the Loony Tunes characters fully 2D animated and maybe cut back a little on the CGI just a tad. Even if the story and characters are not on point, the visuals at the very least did give us something flashy yet intriguing.
Kris Bowers is the composer for this movie and he does what you’d expect him to do as he gives us decent compositional scores that try to disguise the modern corporate pop songs that the movie is plagued with. The pop songs do represent the 2020’s very well but they aren't as fun as before. Sometimes it's cool to hear different tracks from popular Warner Bro’s properties but other than that, the music feels more corporate than fun.
Space Jam A New Legacy is far from an awful movie but it somehow managed to be a little worse than its predecessor. I do think the hate it gets is a little overbearing, but I understand that it’s nothing more than one big advertisement for Warner Bro’s movies and shows. Some fun moments made me feel glad I watched it, although it could have done a bit better with its story and characters to make the film feel more fun and engaging. I surprisingly would rather watch the original Space Jam over this new movie because even though it is not in any way great, it at least was passionate in its tone and style whereas this movie is unfortunately too corporate and pandering to make me even care that it can be anything better than what it is, A big giant commercial.