Long-awaited sequels have tended to have a good track record. From the likes of Mad Max: Fury Road to Bill & Ted Face The Music, a good distance between the last film has proven to be a safe bet. This is not the case for Space Jam: A New Legacy.
Whereas the previous Space Jam movie was a surprise that it even happened, this new film offers no surprise. It leans so heavy into its commercial appeal of tapping the Warner Bros that it may have been the safest movie for the studio to ever pursue. If only the film had some guts to be more than just a referential retread.
LeBron Goes Digital
The best that can be said of the film is its story. There’s a decent arc for LeBron James to pursue in this picture rather than just stand around like a Looney Tunes straight man. He finds himself struggling to connect with his son who would rather create video games than play basketball.
Their relationship reaches a dark turn when they venture to the Warner Bros lot. A vindictive computer program (Don Cheadle) wants LeBron all to himself. He figures he can win him in a basketball match by pitting his son against him.
Not-So-Looney Tunes
Given that LeBron is trapped in the Warner Bros “Serververse”, he has to form a basketball team. The Looney Tunes would probably be the last characters he’d want in terms of skills but the movie has to push him that way. It wouldn’t be Space Jam if he only recruited Superman and The Iron Giant; that would just be Ready Player One Part 2.
LeBron has some admiration for Bugs Bunny and decides to seek his help in finding a team. Bugs, however, has his own plans. His larger goal is to reunite with all his split-up cartoon brethren that have been deemed behind the times.
The various Looney Tunes characters are strewn about other Warner Bros properties but not cleverly. Roadrunner is in the Mad Max movies but the joke is that Roadrunner is in a Mad Max movie. Daffy Duck is trying to be Superman but the only joke is Daffy Duck looks like Superman.
Petrified Parody
The major malfunction with such a film is that it’s so stiff. The original Space Jam found funny stuff to do in terms of Looney Tunes antics and commentary on Jordan’s career. Even when LeBron is chucked into the traditional-2D format of the Tunes, he still feels like a celebrity treated with the same kid gloves as a Simpsons cameo.
The one scene that evokes the real issue with the film is when LeBron stresses to his Looney Tune players that they need to focus more on fundamentals than their looniness. And that is exactly what this new Space Jam feels like; an exercise in marketing more than a flexing for comedy.
No New Tricks
I’m not going to complain that this whole experiment is just another Ready Player One-style commercial for all of Warner Bros’s content. That’s an aspect that shouldn’t surprise anybody with WB’s history of roasting itself. The only fault of that is it doesn’t result in a Looney Tunes movie that feels like a Looney Tunes movie.
Speaking of which, can we stop with this repeated narrative that the Looney Tunes are over the hill? When have they ever been this? This storyline was last seen in 2003’s Looney Tunes: Back in Action, asking how much the Tunes have to change their stripes to remain relevant.
At the time that Space Jam 2 debuted, there is already a host of new Looney Tunes cartoons playing on HBO Max. Many of them adhere to classic tropes and are still ridiculously funny. So why is Space Jam trying to convince the audience that the toons are old news?
Conclusion: Space Jam: A New Legacy
The Looney Tunes may have stood the test of time but this latest iteration of Space Jam does them no justice. It’s not the worst take on the characters considering most of them are on point and the film isn’t totally devoid of some aspects that I’m sure many kids will adore.
LeBron’s arc is pleasing and it’s nice to see a film as big as this not lose sight of its main goal of family values. It’s just unfortunate that it loses sight of everything else that would make it funny. The final result is a film that feels more like a missed basket than the slam dunk it was aiming to be.
What did you think of Space Jam: A New Legacy? Did you see it in the theaters or on HBO Max? How does it stack up next to Black Widow? Let us know in the comments below.
