Was it at least a good ad for Warner Bros.? Well, gosh, I take from Space Jam: A New Legacy the fact that Warner Bros. is responsible for Casablanca, The Wizard of Oz, The Iron Giant, It, and the Harry Potter world among other entertainment options, all off which I feel a little worse about now. So … no, it wasn’t.
But that didn’t stop the movie from advertising itself over and over and over and over again. You thought Disney was bad? Imagine a film in which Disney not only trotted out all its princesses for laughs, then reintroduced all its villains, then wrote Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy, Pluto and everyone they ever encountered into the screenplay at which point they namedropped every live action Disney hero from Kurt Russell to Don Knotts and then reminded you of every catchy ditty in their imbroglio, er, portfolio from The Little Mermaid to Song of the South, only afterwards touring the campuses of Disneyland, DisneyWorld, EuroDisney, Disney Asia, and the crypt of Walt Disney himself for good measure. That’s what Space Jam: A New Legacy feels like.
Was there a movie in there somewhere? I’m not sure.
Beneath the spectacle of color, sound, and CGI and MORE color, sound, and CGI, and still MORE MORE MORE color, sound, and CGI, here’s what I saw: The commercial opens with a weirdly substantial and inappropriate amount of LeBron James personal history. I can get why he had to learn the lesson of paying attention to basketball instead of toys (especially so he can misapply the lesson to his own son in the film), but I don’t get why we needed to see year-by-year details on his entire NBA career. We know he’s quite good at basketball; we know he has many rings. At some point, the details really don’t matter – your story is about LeBron getting sucked into a cartoon world; why does it matter that we know he had two separate stints with the Cleveland Guardians, er, Cavaliers?
Al G. Rhythm (Don Cheadle) is a –get this- computer algorithm who comes up with the idea of packaging LeBron as a commodity for all things Warner Bros. (This cannot possibly be a new idea, and the fabrication is fittingly introduced by a fabricated being). When LeBron rejects the idea, Al sucks LeBron and his rebellious son Dom (Cedric Joe) into the computer world, forcing LeBron to win freedom for he and his son by defeating a team of computer generated all-star human hybrids in a basketball-like game invented by Dom.
This is going a looooong way to get LeBron to play a Looney Tunes version of Basketball with Looney Tunes. Despite playing a minimal amount of basketball in his premiere film, LeBron was better in Trainwreck. A lot better. Space Jam: A New Legacy probably knew it was leaving a lot to be desired in terms of acting and writing, so it patched and caulked every hole with a splashy ad for Warner Bros. I really would love to know how these writing sessions went down:
“Uh oh, looks like we’ve asked LeBron to act in this scene…”
“Quick! Remind the audience of Harry Potter! Put LeBron in Hufflepuff”
…
“Hmmm, here we need LeBron to give his Tunes an inspirational speech to overcome a 1,000 point deficit!” (FWIW, they really were down over 1,000 points at halftime. For those who don’t follow basketball, no team has ever scored more than 200 points in an NBA game.)
“Ok, let’s nix that speech and instead have Michael Jordan show up, but NOT Michael Jordan the basketball player, Michael B. Jordan, the guy from those Creed movies.”
…
“Here, LeBron needs to shake off adversity and get back in the game…”
“Four words: Served by Porky Pig.”
Yeah, that happened. Do you really want the very whitest toon on the block in a rap battle?
One of the biggest problems with this check-cashing sequel is the first film wasn’t much of a film. Space Jam spent two hours to tell us … what? That Michael Jordan is pretty good at basketball? Pretty sure I didn’t need to know that one. A New Legacy 
has a little more heart, and yet, seems to teach us even less because the fellas aren’t actually playing basketball … and the film acknowledges this. Whatever was played in New Legacy resembles basketball the way foosball resembles soccer. “Style points?” No rules? Running over an opponent with a freight train is acceptable fair play? You know, LeBron may be the best player in the NBA…he may well be the best basketball player of all time. Does that come out in Space Jam: A New Legacy? Only if you consider getting schooled and posterized by his pubescent son part of being GOAT.
Space Jam: A New Legacy certainly put in a lot of time and energy. The animators worked overtime to come up with some of these pro-hoops alter egos and 3D looking cartoons; and, golly gee, there are just so many colors and sounds and people you’ll recognize from other films … which makes it all the sadder to report how dull, unnecessary, and monotonous this film is. I suppose nonsensical is the point when you’re dealing with cartoons, but then why explore the relationship between LeBron and son? Is that nonsensical, too, because I sure didn’t get that impression. Space Jam: A New Legacy may satisfy a small segment of children who are dying to see how cartoon LeBron would interact with, say, Foghorn Leghorn or Yosemite Sam, but this film mostly comes off as an enormous waste of talent and time. You love Warner Bros.? Go see one of their better pictures; it shouldn’t be hard to identify one … every single one is advertised in Space Jam: A New Legacy.
An encyclopedia of all things Warner Bros.
Is present for whatever your druthers
It’s really quite telling
All this ham-fisted selling
These sibs should have been named “Smothers”
Rated PG, 115 Minutes
Director: Malcolm D. Lee
Writer: Juel Taylor, Tony Rettenmaier, Keenan Coogler
Genre: Commercial
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Toons
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Fans of movies, sports conventions
