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Space Jam Movie Review

Space Jam is a 1996 live-action/animated sports comedy film directed by Joe Pytka and starring Michael Jordan and the Looney Tunes characters. It’s a silly, but somewhat endearing mix.

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“He’s fixing a divot!“

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After Michael Jordan’s retirement, he is abducted by Bugs Bunny from the Looney Tunes group and is asked to play a match to defeat the Nerdlucks, a criminal alien group led by Mister Swackhammer. This is a movie that I remember seeing as a kid, but this is the first time I’m seeing it as an adult, and it’s pretty much exactly what I expected it would be – not bad, but not really good either.

Clearly the choice to make a film about Looney Tunes characters all together was a strong idea, but adding in Jordan was definitely very timely for the mid nineties during his immense stardom. The end result was a movie that was a giant at the box office. However, it feels like a gimmick flick that is so obsessed with its star that it forgets to develop the cartoon stars more.

Michael Jordan’s acting wasn’t the greatest obviously as he has never been an actor, but it’s serviceable for this particular movie as he is very enjoyable and even endearing in his presence. He himself is fine, but the movie itself hyped him up so much and glorified him to the extreme, which was frustrating to watch. The storyline that he got also wasn’t the strongest, though it was interesting seeing a highly fictionalized, strange alternate future that they imagined for him here.

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As for the Looney Tunes characters, they were disappointing to me personally. I am a huge fan of this classic Warner Bros. franchise and they are the main reason why I decided to see this flick, so their roles felt undeveloped to me. As a group, they are fine, but individually not so much. The movie has so many characters that it rarely has the time to focus extensively on any one of them.

With that being said, Bugs is pretty good and his usual clever self. Daffy is the best of the bunch as he is both screwy and reckless while his scenes in the live-action realm were the highlights. Tweety also has his moments, but Foghorn, Sylvester and others needed more screen time. Lola is terrific and this is the main new addition for this franchise that really works.

I also liked some supporting actors in the live-action world here. Bill Murray is great at the little role that he got and the same goes for other comedy actors used here. Still, the problem remains that the movie had too many characters to properly develop.

Space Jam is actually very strong in the mixing of the two mediums. The animated segments feel smoothly integrated into the live-action realm and it just works, especially in the basketball sequences that are otherwise only okay, but visually they really pop. The interactions between these characters felt surprisingly natural. I just wish that the humor and dialogue were better and that the story wasn’t so subpar.

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