‘Space Jam’ sequel should’ve just been a cereal released exclusively at a theme park
WB
The issue with “Space Jam: A New Legacy” is hardly that this Warner Brothers film, brought to you by Warner Brothers in conjunction with the Brothers Warner and also WB, represents a relentless game of spot-the-property — as if the current approach to comic book movie universes also means “Harry Potter,” “King Kong,” “Casablanca,” “The Mask” and “The Flintstones” just have to play together. Entertainment as stream-of-consciousness has been a thing for a while (ugh, mandatory mention of junk like “Date Movie”), with the wit of “The Lego Movie” disintegrating in the years since to become product placement as actual product. “Ready Player One” is everyday life. We are probably in “The Matrix.”
Rather, the problem with this sequel, released 25 years after the bizarrely beloved, very hollow, and embarrassingly short original, goes well beyond its insistence on nodding to “The Wizard of Oz” and “Wonder Woman” and and and. It’s that at a time when sincere inspiration in family programming is a rarity, a movie that had DECADES to come up with a good idea ultimately just plops already well-tread ideas from “Hook” and “The Mighty Ducks” into “Tron” and cues the soundtrack. To the point where you almost forget what stories about love and sports and family are supposed to feel like because this one feels so shopworn, so far from the impact that can be achieved through human characters who aren’t just placeholders between hyperactive montages.
To the surprise of no one, “Space Jam: A New Legacy” aims low and has not the smoothness of a LeBron pass but the light touch of a Shaq free throw. If you think that line is stale, get ready for jokes about MC Hammer and platitude after platitude about the importance of hard work but also the even greater importance of having fun. The story, again a case of too much plot and not enough, involves Al-G Rhythm (Don Cheadle) -- an algorithm desperate for the recognition of one of the all-time greatest basketball players because that is certainly the humans-versus-technology future we’ve created for ourselves -- kidnapping LeBron James (playing himself) and turning his son Dom (Cedric Joe) against him in a complicated world of enormous servers and a few real-life basketball stars and way too many poorly used Looney Tunes. (Legend Billy West no longer voices Bugs Bunny, to the movie’s detriment.) That’s a long, tiring, stupid sentence.
Much is made of Dom preferring to make video games than to play basketball, and how his dad has sucked out the enjoyment by focusing on winning. It’s not clear if LeBron actually has complicated feelings about his own childhood passions being stomped out of him by ambition as his “character” says here, or if he has doubts about his parenting because of his real life’s trajectory. It is not believable that he really wouldn’t be able to think of anything to talk about with his children other than basketball, considering his commitment to being outspoken about social issues (the movie even shows him opening his “I Promise” school). Obviously, this isn’t supposed to be a documentary about LeBron; that movie is called “More than a Game,” which came out in 2009 and is perfectly OK.
Yet while “A New Legacy” was inevitable in the sense that LeBron was always identified as the new Michael Jordan, those who tire of comparing the remarkable athletes’ on-court prowess will surely delight in finally debating their acting ability within the same property! Or not. This is a movie where one of the best jokes hinges on confusing MJ for an actor who has the same name as him, and it’s a bit futile to care about the measly acting abilities of athletes in movies that require hardly anything in terms of performance. That said, Jordan’s competence looks graceful compared to LeBron’s stiffness, a far cry from the timing he displayed in “Trainwreck.” (Judd Apatow 1, Malcolm D. Lee 0.) It is not worth spending more time talking about the acting in “Space Jam: A New Legacy.”
More worthwhile is recognizing how nostalgia has turned the lame original into something mistaken for purity, and how the wave of anger that greeted the sequel made praising it in any way about as popular as criticizing the first movie. The second one is a half-hour longer, and you will check and check to see if it’s almost over. But a story about a dad learning how to connect with his child, and communicating in direct terms how much he loves him, will always count for at least a little, even if those words always just feel like a Jim Carrey character talking. There are basic motivational messages about confronting adversity and a few laughs, and Lola Bunny isn’t seuxalized. Constant endorsements of family and a main character named Dom may make you wish the “Fast and Furious” franchise belonged to Warner Brothers, or be glad it doesn’t. (Though I assume that will be an animated series soon regardless.)
The world would’ve been fine without this movie, but, despite claims to the contrary, we’ve also got no shortage of things that are way, way worse. And it’s hard to depict the difficulty of turning old ideas into progress more clearly and painfully than Cheadle’s character bellowing “What in the AARP is going on out here?” after the animated granny gets bonus “senior discount” points for kicking the ball into the hoop, or Porky Pig rapping about getting respect since 1935, unconcerned with creating an end date to that period in the process.
D+
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