Space Jam: A New Legacy

Space Jam: A New Legacy starts out like it wants to be about something, until it eventually devolves into a shapeless and indistinguishable blob of special effects, and references to as many movies and TV show properties that the filmmakers could think of to squeeze into the background.  It may be a soulless corporate product, but hey, it has a father-son message, so that means it has a point.  Kind of.  Sort of.  Maybe.  

And no, I am not forgetting that the original Space Jam from 1996 was just as much of a corporate monstrosity as the follow up.  And to be fair, this film's star, LeBron James, is a much better actor than Michael Jordan was.  However, he gets to show none of the comedic timing he displayed in 2015's Trainwreck, which is disappointing.  Teaming him up with Bugs Bunny (voice by Jeff Bergman) and the rest of the Looney Tune gang doesn't help either, because they are simply treated as special effects here, instead of characters inhabiting a story.  LeBron could have been partnered up with any cartoon universe or character, and the movie would be exactly the same.  This is as soulless a corporate cash grab that has ever been produced, and that's even before the sight gag where a Toon version of James crashes through the ground, and leaves a mark in the shape of the Nike symbol.

The plot doesn't make the slightest bit of sense, but that's at least to be expected.  This movie finds James as a frustrated dad trying to connect with his 12-year-old son, Dom (Cedric Joe), who would rather design his own video games than play basketball.  They are both invited to the Warner Bros. Studio, where an evil computer algorithm has taken on the physical form of actor Don Cheadle (very game here, and keeping his dignity amongst the chaos around him), and calls himself Al G. Rhythm.  Al, for some reason, needs LeBron's help in getting the world connected to his server, so he zaps both the star and his kid into a digital world, holds Dom hostage, and forces LeBron to compete in a game of basketball for his freedom.  James is quickly joined up with Bugs, who has lost his fellow Looney Tune friends over time, and needs the Basketball Great's help in finding them before the game can begin.

The Tunes have been scattered into different parts of the Warner Bros. server, so LeBron and Bugs get to venture into different worlds built around different properties and intellectual IPs owned by the studio.  Lola Bunny (voice by Zendaya) is training with Wonder Woman (voice by Rosario Dawson) to be an Amazon, Daffy Duck and Porky (both voiced by Eric Bauza) are wannabe superheroes in Metropolis, Yosemite Sam (voice also by Bergman) is now the piano player in Casablanca ("Play it again, Sam".), and Granny (voice by Candi Milo) and Speedy Gonzalez (voice by Gabriel Iglesias) are trapped in The Matrix.  These are more nods to these films than actual tributes, and when the fateful basketball game eventually starts, the audience in the background is filled with numerous WB properties like King Kong, the Iron Giant, Pennywise the Clown, The Mask, and (for some reason) the 'Droogs" from A Clockwork Orange, who were honestly the last people I expected to come across in a family blockbuster.  

If this all sounds like insanity, it would be if the movie ever slowed down long enough for us to take it all in.  But it never stops for a single second, and just keeps on throwing nods, references, and special effects to the point that I almost want to take back some of the things I have said about other failed blockbusters in the past.  This Space Jam is a literal assault on the senses, and I felt like it was constantly hitting me over the head with post-production work that I'm sure was very expensive and took a lot of time for the artists to make, but is literally meaningless, because absolutely nothing gets to resonate here.  There are no characters, no real motivations, and nothing that resembles a coherent plot in the nearly two hours of the film.  Even the big basketball game is meaningless, because we feel no connection to it.  LeBron and the Looney Tunes compete against a group of CG monsters who call themselves the Goon Squad, and resemble snakes and monsters made of fire and water, but hold no personality or character.  They're simply a failed tech demo that isn't even interesting to look at.

I simply didn't know how the filmmakers expected me to respond to this.  It's a total bombardment that never comes close to establishing a tone or a goal.  Sure, the movie tries to add a heartfelt angle by having LeBron and his on-screen son having a hard time connecting early on, but it abandons this notion for long periods, so we can point out all the various characters who are cheering the players on in the background.  Speaking of the literal thousands of cameos, they got a little cheap here.  The Batman and Robin costumes in the background, for example, look like something from a novelty party store.  And just what does the villain hope to achieve with his plan?  What will trapping LeBron and thousands of innocent bystanders into his digital world do for him?  And why did this script require 6 credited screenwriters and four story people?  Were they being paid for suggesting a character the studio owned that could be in the audience?

When the screening was done, I felt drained, tired, and assaulted.  I had just spent the past couple hours witnessing a soulless visual stimuli that was equal parts dumb and exhausting.  If anything, the movie made me appreciate 2003's Looney Tunes: Back in Action more.  At least that movie had the sense to make Bugs, Daffy and the rest matter in their own storyline, and gave them personalities that matched the early cartoons.  Here, they're just special effects vying for our attention with other special effects in one of the most moronic vanity projects ever put to film.

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