Jul 18, 2021

Space Jam: a New Legacy? How about no.

 I have to be honest here:
My expectations for this movie were low. I'm talking hell's basement low. I was not disappointed. This movie is bad. How bad is it? It makes the original Space Jam look good for starters. 
Space Jam a New Legacy:
 Do you like Space Jam? 
Do you like Hook? 
Do you like blink and you miss references a la Ready Player One? 
 If you said yes to any of those, imagine a mix of all those and make it shittier. Then that shitty imaginary version is 9000+ times better than the real thing. 


Don't let the "It'S fOr KiDs" apologists fool you. It's an awful movie and giving kids such crap is what makes them have no taste and enjoy crap like Bad Bunny. The best jokes in the movie are the self aware jokes about this movie being a bad retread of the far superior Space Jam with Michael Jordan... and I'm not saying the Original is a GOOD film. Just that is a lot better than this one.

The plot in a nutshell:
Evil AI played by Don Cheadle traps LeBron and his son inside HBO Max. He forces LeBron to retread Space Jam in order to rescue his kid. In the meantime, the Evil AI is trying to corrupt LeBron's kid a la Hook. LeBron is stuck with the Looney Tunes as his team in order to fight the digital monsters created by LeBron's son.

 Most of the movie is wasted on a WB promotion of their properties on HBO Max. By the time we get to the game the 2 hour movie os barely at the halfway point... the better Space JAM lasted less than 90 minutes. The game has the Looney Tunes losing badly until LeBron decides to stop being Drama Queen James and lets the Looney Tunes play as Looney Tunes. He then talks to his son and apologizes about not letting the kid be himself. This causes the kid to switch teams faster than LeBron can cry about beating Jordan and forces Don Cheadle to become Don Cheater. At the end LeBron wins by bullshit and happy ending. 

The movie's themes have been done before already and a lot better. It's obvious that aside of LeBron chasing that ghost of Jordan, the movie was full of WB executive meddling. That is an awful sign, based on past experiences of WB meddling with directors... I'm talking about Tim Burton in the 90s. 

Now in all fairness, I am exaggerating the awfulness for comedic purposes, but there are a few coffee beans in this civet cat poop of a movie.
Don Cheadle pulls off a delicious performance as Al G. Rhythm...
The Looney Tunes work pretty well, except Zendaya who plays Zendaya as a bunny instead of Lola. Like I mentioned earlier the jokes that reference the previous Space Jam are not bad. The best joke of the movie subverts the expectations of having Michael Jordan appear in the movie. It was rather obvious that they were going to bring Michael B Jordan but the joke was still good... sorry I should say as good as it can get for a bad Space Jam sequel.

Should you watch this movie? Only if it's for free. And I don't mean 🏴‍☠️ free, because even Piracy requires an effort. I'm talking free as in you're waiting at a Doctor's office and they have it on the waiting room's TV. If the movie didn't put an effort to be good, then why you should put an effort to watch it? 
 

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