Review: ‘Space Jam: A New Legacy’ doesn’t leave a lasting impression

Fifteen years ago, at the height of his career and in the middle of his first retirement, Michael Jordan was recruited by the Looney Tunes to stave off an alien abduction. He succeeded and the classic cartoon characters lived to laugh another day. Now all these years later, the toons are in another life-or-death situation and need the help of another NBA all-star to avoid enslavement. Thus, Space Jam: A New Legacy invites a new basketball legend into the animated world to help them defend against a sinister mastermind who has a secret weapon to rig the game in their favour.

LeBron James (himself) is living his best life and encouraging his sons to do the same… as long as they’re following in his footsteps, However, while Darius (Ceyair J Wright) is happy to make basketball his life, Dom (Cedric Joe) is more interested in working on his video game — a pursuit LeBron doesn’t deem worthy in spite of his wife’s encouragement (Sonequa Martin-Green). In the off-season, LeBron is invited to Warner Bros. Studios to hear their pitch for a new movie, conceived by Al G. Rhythm (Don Cheadle), the artificial intelligence at the centre of WB’s brain trust. When LeBron rejects the idea, Al takes it personally and immediately puts in play a plan for revenge. Sucked into the computer, Dom is lured away by Al and LeBron finds himself in Tune World with Bugs Bunny. The two sides have 24 hours to assemble their basketball teams and play a high-stakes game for an audience of licensed characters and conscripted spectators.

If this movie seems very familiar, that would be because it shares a lot of commonalities with its predecessor. Except for some minor tweaks to the story, the major plot points are nearly identical. The key differences are the villain’s origins, and the relationship between LeBron and his son. The latter, however, also pushes the film to a noticeable almost two hours. The fact that Dom’s father doesn’t approve of his career trajectory is an age-old story to which many can relate. Unfortunately, there’s a lot of build up while both teams prepare for the matchup, which should’ve peaked when they met on the court; instead, it’s very anticlimactic, which is reflective of the film overall.

Since this is a big studio movie, one of the more amusing things to do during the big game is scan the crowd, which consists of a mishmash of licensed characters. There are other classic animated personalities, including The Jetsons, The Flintstones, Iron Giant, Scooby-Doo, Space Ghost, Jabberjaw, Peter Potamus and Penelope Pitstop. Meanwhile, the live action characters appear to be a collection of cosplayers in an assortment of costumes from the last several decades, including Harry Potter, Wizard of Oz, Batman, Robin, Penguin and other DC heroes and villains, Game of Thrones, The Matrix, King Kong, The Mask, Clockwork Orange, Austin Powers and Casablanca. There are many more not listed here, making crowd-watching almost more enjoyable than the game itself.

It was somewhat off-putting to hear so much ego-stroking for James in the picture’s first act. Most people have heard his name and know he’s a good basketball player. It seemed unnecessary to repeatedly sing his praises and reassert his stardom to the point that viewers may begin thinking, “Okay, we get it!”… particularly when James’ acting abilities (or ability to take himself less seriously) are not the elements anyone will be overly complimenting any time soon. However, once they’re past all the flattery and focus shifts to the toonier parts of the program, it becomes more entertaining — it’s especially interesting (and kind of weird) to see the characters in a more modern animation style.

Director: Malcolm D. Lee
Starring: LeBron James, Don Cheadle and Cedric Joe