It’s fairly normal in this day and age for movies, television shows, and even video games to get a reboot, remake, seriously-delayed new iteration, and what have you to capitalize on a nostalgic property that hasn’t been acted upon in years or decades. So when Space Jam: A New Legacy was announced with LeBron James as the attached star, there were just as many supporters as there were skeptics. So, after several COVID delays, how does the film pan out?

If you look back, the original Space Jam actually received a lot of lukewarm and even negative reviews back in the mid-’90s when Michael Jordan was reaching the peak of his stardom. It was fun to see the basketball star make his way into Hollywood, even if his acting chops weren’t all there. Crossing paths with the Looney Tunes made for a fun experience, something that only briefly happened in the film Who Framed Roger Rabbit?. The back-and-forth between these parties is a blast and is good for at least a few laughs in the movie’s runtime.

So, why add to a film franchise that has been long unused since 1996? Well, Warner Bros. seemed to have a lot of fun putting their franchises into the movie Ready Player One, so why not introduce them to “The Serververse”? Yes, in Space Jam: A New Legacy, you’ll see everything from Batman to The Matrix to Casablanca. I particularly enjoyed seeing A Clockwork Orange characters and even The Mask in the crowd during the film’s climax.

Including LeBron in the film meant including his whole family, except they were played by people not related to him, removing any real-life believability to the mix. With no disrespect to the actors/actresses, they actually put on a strong performance, Bron’s weak shouts when he’s falling and fabricated elation was enough to make me cringe on more than one occasion. As such, the live-action sequences of A New Legacy were a slog to get through, I had to watch the movie over the course of two days to get through it.

The positive part about this new Space Jam is that the animated sequences are stellar. It was a pleasure to see The Looney Tunes get their time to shine, especially if Big Chungus and Rick & Morty get the spotlight. It’s a shame to hear that Lola’s voice actress got replaced by Zendaya to add star power to the cast, but the latter gave a great performance in the end. If the live-action scenes have anything going for them, it’s the gorgeous eye-candy and Don Cheadle’s stellar antagonist portrayal.

Space Jam: A New Legacy isn’t necessarily “so-bad-it’s-good,” it does have enough positives going for it to avoid that. If you can manage to get through the struggle-worthy real-world moments, you’ll get to great visuals in “The Serververse” and some great banter between the Looney Tunes. It may be an enjoyable experience within a theater with friends, but maybe not so much on your own with HBO Max if you plan to do the whole thing from start to finish.

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Space Jam: A New Legacy

5

Score

5.0/10

Pros

• Beautiful Visuals
• Some Fun Moments

Cons

• Poor Acting
• Cringe-worthy Dialogue
• Too Many References