Monday 1 November 2021

Space Jam: A New Legacy (2021) - Movie Review

Back when I looked at the latest Tom & Jerry movie, I made an aside saying that I was looking forward to this feature. Well, after a good few months of reflection, and actually sitting down to rewatch the original for the first time in years, I want to wholeheartedly retract that statement. The original Space Jam is a film that didn’t need to exist in the first place, essentially serving as a feature-length adaptation of a commercial that is itself a highly commercialised product. There is not a single good idea to be found in it as a piece of art, but the reason why it remains watchable to this day is that everyone attached to it is having fun despite what they’ve been brought together to create. That, and the soundtrack is still fire after all these years.

But more so than cashing in on the original IP of Space Jam, this film’s existence points to the filmmakers and production studios trying to bank on a different feature to make some coin; namely, Ready Player One. Like RPO (also released by Warner Bros.), it relies a lot on recognisable characters from other properties, and WB certainly push the boat out in regards to references, including Harry Potter, Batman, Game Of Thrones, right up to A Clockwork Orange, It, and even Ken Russell’s The Devils.

Now, on its own, I don’t have a problem with these references being here (hell, nothing here is any more or less audacious than the Pulp Fiction gag from the original), but rather with how they’re framed. See, while RPO definitely has its issues, all of those recognisable characters and locations were prefaced with the notion that they are things that the audience gives a damn about. It was part of the larger tribute to pop culture as actual culture that felt rewarding for viewers who spend a lot of time invested in fiction. It acknowledged that we care about the media we enjoy, same as the LEGO movies did (mostly).

Space Jam: A New Legacy is a completely different story. Rather than keeping the fandom of any of the highlighted IPs in mind, it is all transparently self-serving on the part of WB. It’s like seeing a kid going to school on the day after his birthday, and spending the entire class just shoving all of his new toys in the faces of his classmates. Not letting anyone else actually play with them; just showing off the fact that they own them. The fact that the main villain is a literal algorithm just makes that idea even harder to swallow, as if acknowledging the soulless birthplace of such an idea is enough to excuse still tapping the same well once again. I really, really wish filmmakers would stop thinking this is a good thing to be doing.

That’s not to say that this film had no chance of working, though; like I said, the original wasn’t exactly great cinema, but it was bolstered by how everyone seemed to be in on the joke and were playing it in just the right way to still be entertaining. Hell, I can even understand the involvement of Ryan Coogler with this, as the man has a thing for reviving Black pop culture (same as he did with Apollo Creed and Black Panther). But again, keeping the studio name at the forefront, this whole thing reeks of higher interference, right down to the original director Terence Nance (who has had actual success with live-action/animated hybrids in the past with An Oversimplification Of Her Beauty) leaving the project over creative differences. They tried to make up for it by crediting him twice for the story, though.

But the biggest letdown for me comes down to the main cast: LeBron James and the Looney Tunes. Between Trainwreck and Smallfoot, LeBron has proven that he can operate in a cinematic space, and he wouldn’t even need to be accommodated for like Michael Jordan was in the original (was only capable of looking awkward on-screen, and the rest of the production ran with it). But not only is he embarrassingly flat throughout, but the main ‘drama’ between him and his son (played by Cedric Jones) only adds another nail to the coffin of this film’s rampant cynicism. The main message boiling down to “just be yourself” is already basic enough, but coming out of a film this devoid of individuality and personality only makes it worse.

And that’s without getting into whatever the fuck happened to the Looney Tunes here. Aside from how their involvement ties into the trite messaging (effectively limiting their cartoon logic antics during the game, which is a major miscalculation), the way they are integrated with WB’s toybox hits the sourest of notes every single time. In-universe, all of the Tunes (save for Bugs) were put on a rocket and sent out into the Warner Bros. Serververse, ending up in the DC superhero universe, the Matrix, the Mad Max desert, etc. To put it simply, I struggled to sit through these snippets without just pausing and walking away from my computer. When you’re getting outshined by the 2003 MTV Movie Awards, maybe asking an audience to pay to see your work isn't the best idea.

Even with how unapologetically commercial the original film was, the sheer lack of fucks given here manage to make its predecessor look downright modest by comparison. If the first film is something that logically doesn’t need to exist, this flat-out shouldn’t exist. Its only purpose is to draw in nostalgic audiences and show off just how much of our collective nostalgia is bought-and-sold by the production studio that made it. And because WB is more invested in making itself look good than making its own products look good, it can’t even get that right. No matter how fondly you may remember the original Space Jam, I implore you: Avoid this movie at all costs.

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