Space Jam: A New Legacy

Space Jam: A New Legacy
Starring LeBron James, Don Cheadle, Cedric Joe, Sonequa Martin-Green
Directed by Malcolm D. Lee

1996's "Space Jam" was an enjoyable little film where superstar basketball player Michael Jordan is transported to the world of Looney Tunes and must play a high-stakes game of basketball with the Tunes in order to save themselves from enslavement at an evil man's amusement park. It wasn't great by any stretch of the imagination, but it was fun, funny, and filled with heart and humor. Ever since, there's been ideas pitched to Warner Bros. about a possible sequel (including ideas like "Race Jam" with Jeff Gordon, "Golf Jam" with Tiger Woods, and "Skate Jam" with Tony Hawk), but none of them thankfully came to fruition. When it looked like they had finally given up on providing a lackluster sequel to a beloved original, LeBron James was cast in the new "Space Jam: A New Legacy," and the results turned out to be even lower than everyone's lowest expectations.

When he was younger, LeBron James had a passion for video games as well as basketball, but his coach told him to only focus on basketball and take all the fun out of playing. As the years went on, LeBron went on to become one of the best basketball players in history, purchasing a mansion in Los Angeles with his wife Kamiyah (Sonequa Martin-Green) and being a father to three kids, including middle child Dom (Cedric Joe), who's more into creating his own basketball video game than playing the sport himself, to LeBron's chagrin.

Meanwhile, back at Warner Bros., computer A.I. named Al-G Rhythm (Don Cheadle) is angry that he's being ignored and forgotten, but when LeBron and Dom come to visit the studio he gets an idea: he pulls Dom and LeBron into the server and tells LeBron that he must play him in a game of basketball to win back his son, whom Al manipulates to turn him against his father and play on his team, using his video game ideas equipped with mutated basketball players and power-ups. LeBron is sent to Tune Verse, where he runs into Bugs Bunny, and together they gather Bugs's fellow Looney Tunes to once again play the game of basketball, but this time to save LeBron's son as well as the millions of followers who tuned into the match and found themselves sucked into the server by Al.

When you get six people to write a script for you, you'd expect the product to be top-notch. However, that's not the case here. You could claim it's because LeBron James is a basketball star and not an actor, but not even Daniel Day-Lewis could salvage the mess of a story that "A New Legacy" delivers. On its head it makes absolutely no sense, and it only becomes more and more nonsensical as the film slowly, painfully prattles on at a snail's pace which will leaving you pulling your hair out as you just want the nightmare to end - or, since you're not forced to actually watch it, just turn it off. I endured so you can be spared. You're welcome.

"A New Legacy" basically serves more to showcase the extensive Warner Bros. catalogue than actually telling a coherent story, and the only real enjoyment comes from trying to point out all the intellectual properties you find in the crowd (such as Pennywise, The Nun - both great for a children's film - the Game of Thrones cast, King Kong, the Iron Giant, The Mask, wizards, and the like). The actual story is so bare and nonexistent you wonder how six people gathered together to write it, unless they were all complete imbeciles: a father/son disconnect due to their passions (LeBron's being basketball, Dom's being video game developing) being so different, which could've easily been resolved with a heart-to-heart but instead it turned into a full blown basketball game inside a server with animated toons for the sake of the lives of everyone involved. At almost two hours long, the movie just keeps slowly inching forward without providing anything enjoyable, but you just feel like it's a soul-less endeavor to capitalize on Warner Bros. and the HBOMax catalogue.

LeBron James simply cannot act, and even the self-defecating humor thrown his way falls flat (except for the jab about him not committing to one city). This is the epitome of a vanity project, as we are reminded again and again as to how great LeBron is, how he's the King, and (possibly) the GOAT, and you can sense his head getting bigger and bigger, but not due to his animation. Yet when it comes to trying to deliver soulful, emotional performances, LeBron fouls on every turn. You don't sense a connection at all between him and his "son" Dom, and maybe having his real son play his son in the film could've resonated some sort of emotion other than disinterest, but then you'd have two main actors in the film who aren't actually actors.  

Don Cheadle has been playing a good guy for so long, seeing him as the villain is extremely strange, and somehow I found myself still rooting for him (probably because LeBron was so awful). His whole narrative arc is nonsensical at best, with him being a disgruntled AI algorithm (named Al G. Rhythm...I'm sure at least four of those six writers combined their brains to come up with that lazy name) wanting to be recognized by stealing LeBron and all his followers in the hopes of keeping them in the server forever, because that makes a whole lot of sense. Cheadle is a seasoned, Academy Award nominated actor who obviously knew what he was getting into here, and decided to go "full Nicolas Cage" in his performance, relishing in the audacity of it all, providing a surprisingly likable villain if not just for the sole fact that he knew how stupid the project was.

When we finally get to the Looney Tunes (about forty five minutes into it), it only serves to propel the Warner Bros. brand, as LeBron and Bugs must travel through the Warner Server-verse to find his fellow Tunes who are living in different intellectual properties by WB, such as "Casablanca," "Mad Max: Fury Road," "The Matrix," "Game of Thrones," "Rick and Morty," "Wonder Woman," and the entire DC Universe. At least their animation was true to their original, until Al G. Rhythm turns them into computer generated characters which makes them borderline frightening due to their strange reality-looking animations. When the actual game begins, it has very little to do with the actual game of basketball and more about it being a video game, filled with bonuses, power-ups and cheats that turns into a dizzying animated vomit ride that'll keep the kids' eyes glued to the screen because they won't be able to see past the colors, but will leave adults frustrated in the fact that they're not even watching a basketball game.

The only really humorous moment comes during halftime of the game, with a surprise cameo that actually had me laughing for the first (and only) time in the film. Afterward, LeBron (who up to this point told the Tunes to play basketball like he does) realizes that they're not him, and tell them to play like they would, which should've saved the film because we see the Looney Tunes acting in their traditional ways, but by then it was too little, too late, as everyone with half a brain already checked out way before, leaving the ultimately obvious conclusion very unemotional and unmemorable - much like the entirety of this trainwreck (but at least LeBron was good in the movie "Trainwreck," since he was in it for like ten minutes).

Serving as a vanity project for both LeBron James and Warner Bros., "Space Jam: A New Legacy" is devoid of any of the fun, humor, or heart that the original provided, and instead focused on capitalizing on its main star and garnering more HBOMax subscribers.

The Score: D