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We're playing basketball. Na Na, basketball.
It’s early December in the late 90s, and my parents ask three or five-year-old me what I want for Christmas.
“Space Jam!” I shouted as wriggled around with the energy a chubby little kid can muster.
I can’t say for sure if my folks purchased the classic 1996 Space Jam for me on Christmas, but I have the physical VHS copy in my filmography that I binged watch ad nauseam as a kid. I viewed it holding my Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck plush toys (I still have them) ever as I saw Space Jam for a trillionth time. Anticipation filled the room each time I put Space Jam on; hoping one day for a sequel.
Twenty-five years later, after many attempts to bring Space Jam to the big screen, it’s here, and it’s better than I imagined. I was ready to tear this movie to shreds, but even though it’s thrown in product placement, and flimsy screenplay, Space Jam: A New Legacy kept me entertained. It’s so enthralling, I enjoyed it more than the original.
Space Jam: A New Legacy features the basketball sensation, LeBron James, as he gets absorbed into a computer run by the charismatic Al G Rhythm (hilarious Warner Brothers) played by Don Cheadle who captured LeBron James’ son, so LeBron has no choice but to play a game of basketball to get his son back. Yes, it makes little sense, but it’s clearer than Space Jams’ plot: An arrogant alien business executive demands to buy tune world, so he assigns his wimpy assistants to gain the planet. Given the alien’s scrawniness, they harvest the abilities of basketball players to give them strength. The Looney Tunes then need the help of Michael Jordan to beat the overpowered aliens from taking their world. Yes, I don’t get it either, yet young Alexander Briseño binged it.
Photo from Indie Wire.
To rescue his son, LeBron James asks for the help of the Looney Tunes to beat the suave algorithm.
This is where the film takes a left turn.
The film throws in all these references, and ads at you, and you sit there wondering, isn’t this a movie about cartoons playing basketball? Yes, you’re not wrong, but it looks as if Warner Brothers want to forge a universe. Further, LeBron and Bugs recruit the tunes who are living in other Warner Brothers properties. Warner Brothers place the tunes in various Warner Brothers TV shows and movies so when kids watch the film as adults, they can say, “Hey! I know that reference.”
Even though there were an overabundance of ads, they’re not distracting and they subtly linger in the background. But I can’t excuse the scene Warner Brothers horseshoed in with Porky Big; I’m not sure what the executives in the boardroom were thinking. Likely the coffee boy or girl didn’t bring them their joe.
Regardless, the forced scenes didn’t bother me, and I had a blast watching and laughing as The Looney Tunes played basketball against an A.I. making Space Jam: A New Legacy’s hour and fifty minutes cruised by. It’s a film I’ll watch again to reminisce about days past. Space Jam: A New Legacy is available on HBO Max and in theaters. Sit down on your favorite couch or theatre chair and view cartoons playing basketball.