Space Jam: A New Legacy - Cheap Thoughts

It’s easy to criticise Space Jam: A New Legacy. It’s easy to criticise it’s predecessor Space Jam. It’s easy to say both are soulless money makers that exist just for the sake of a marketing scheme that exists to prey on your nostalgia while offering nothing creative or entertaining in the slightest. It is all these things and more BUT…No there is no but. They are awful. They are awful films and if you are nostalgic for Space Jam, for the love of God watch better films. Space Jam was not good in the 90s, it is not good now. It was a horrible representation of the Looney Tunes, it lacked any kind of comedy or creative storytelling, the production value was lacklustre and the fact that Michael Jordan can say his move to baseball was not the stupidest decision he made with his career should say a lot.

Yet somehow, Space Jam: A New Legacy is all of those things and yet somehow worse. It is a hypocrisy disguising itself as a movie. A story that’s inciting incident is LeBron James disparaging Warner Bros attempts to lazily produce a multitude of films based on pre-existing Ips generated by an algorithm, yet then the rest of the film is exactly this ridiculous premise unfolded completely unironically. All this film exists to be is to remind you of how many franchises Warner Bros owns, throw in as many as possible regardless of context or purpose. Have a seen where LeBron James and Bugs Bunny travel into the DC Universe, visually presented as the Animated Series from the 2000s, yet with both music from 1970’s Superman: The Movie and the 1960’s Batman Television Series because it’s not about being consistent, it’s just about what people remember. Throw in baffling cameos from Rick & Morty, Mad Max: Fury Road and Casablanca while you’re at it because tone doesn’t matter! People will recognise them! That is all! You remember a thing! That means this is good! Don’t forget during the big final basketball scene to throw in Pennywise the Clown, The Conjuring monsters and The Droogs from A Clockwork Orange and even more so for some baffling reason give them all courtside tickets and throw Fred Flintstone in row 20 for some reason!

The final match itself having no consistency or even effort into actually presenting anything close to an actual match, the points are made up, people are given power ups at random, there is no actual drama, it’s all a farce! The movie in a nutshell. No consistency or effort to be found within a single pixel of this film.

Now there are plenty out there who claim that this movie is fine, it’s just 2 hours of mindless entertainment and if you expect more then you’re thinking too hard about it. Once again, these people need to be reminded that you are worth more! Demand actual effort in your films! Especially in your kids’ films! These being offered to children is no excuse for them to slack off! The Looney Tunes was not built on people giving the bare minimum! It was built on creativity, talent and endeavoured to give audiences something they wouldn’t expect. Everyone involved in this film should be ashamed of themselves, they’ve created one of the laziest and most pathetic motion pictures to come out in a very long time, it’s disgusting how bad this film is, if you enjoyed it, good news, you can go and watch any other film and you’ll have a great time, there’s nowhere to go but up.

-Danny