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Space Jam: A New Legacy Movie Review

Space Jam: A New Legacy is a 2021 live-action/animated comedy film directed by Malcolm D. Lee and starring LeBron James and Looney Tunes characters. It’s very problematic.

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“If we’re going out,

we’re going out Looney!“

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A rogue artificial intelligence kidnaps the son of famed basketball player LeBron James, who then has to work with Bugs Bunny to win a basketball game. This sequel came out 25 years after the original, which is an unusually long time between the movies, but they wanted another big name that can rival Jordan, so they finally found James to be that star.

Let’s first talk about him. Well, he’s not a good actor, that goes without saying. Unlike Jordan who was at least serviceable in the role, James clearly struggled throughout this movie. He got an impression that raising an eyebrow and acting annoyed all the time somehow constitutes acting, so he ended up being very one-note. He’s likable and even endearing at times, but acting is definitely not his biggest suit.

As for the Looney Tunes characters, I would say that they fare pretty much the same as they did in the first movie. Bugs and Daffy are again the highlights while Speedy is promoted here to an enlarged role and his Spanish one-liners were so much fun. Taz and Lola also got their moments while everybody else faded into the background.

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As for the human characters, this is yet another one of those children’s movies where a fraught father-son relationship is followed and eventually the two come to appreciate one another. It is a cliché by now and it was very boring following this tired storyline. Dom is likable, though, and the movie’s emphasis on gaming and especially game creation was very fresh and interesting. The same goes for the villain played so well by Don Cheadle. He was over-the-top, but a solid, memorable presence for sure.

Space Jam: A New Legacy features pretty good mixing of the two mediums, though not quite on the same level of the original. I liked the animation to a degree. The CGI in this flick bothered me as I simply could not picture the Looney Tunes classic characters in 3D. They did their best and the animated segments where LeBron himself is even animated were some of the best and most entertaining in the movie, but still the character designs weren’t my cup of tea per say.

There is one main reason why I liked this movie much less than the original. They are pretty much equal in most regards and the plot might even be better this time around. However, the product placements went haywire here and the marketing campaign felt manipulative and just horrendous. What am I talking about? Well, the ServerVerse of course.

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That name instantly raises alarms. You see, in this film there are many other worlds, all belonging to Warner Bros, and we get to see quite a lot of them in that frustratingly extensive montage. Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote chasing in a ‘Mad Max: Fury Road’ world is the type of stuff I am talking about. This was just too much. Instead of honoring all of these worlds, the filmmakers opted to make them a plug play for their HBO Max service, and all of it felt super manipulative and shameless in their methods.