Michael Jordan. Lebron James. The two greatest basketball players of all time. At this point, they’re basically inseparable, and will be sparking furious debates over who’s the GOAT. Well, if we consider Space Jam movies in that discussion, chalk one up for MJ. Lebron’s A New Legacy modernizes the Space Jams for a new generation in every way, branding away some of the fun essence of MJ’s 1996 movie.
Space Jam: A New Legacy copies the same intro of the 1996 movie, as we learn how Lebron James (playing himself) turned into the superstar that he is: putting in the work. After a montage of his accolades, we now see father Lebron passing that lesson down to his kids. His middle son, Dom (Cedric Joe) takes that lesson to heart, just not on the basketball court. Dom is a gifted programmer, and has made a “NBA Jam” like video game he hopes to show off at an E3 like video game camp, but Lebron misinterprets Dom’s desire for that camp as a shirking of his basketball playing, causing friction between father and son. Making matters worse is Al-G Rhythm (Don Cheadle) an anthropomorphized algorithm drunk for power and fame. When a pitch to Lebron goes horribly, Al kidnaps Dom, and makes Lebron play him in a livestreamed basketball game to win him back. Desperate for teammates, Lebron goes looking through Warner Brothers filmmography, settling on our Looney Toons gang: welcome back to the big screen Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Lola Bunny (Zendaya) and all!
Watching this Space Jam movie makes you realize the minor miracle of how fun the 1996 one was. What would seemingly be small changes basically derail A New Legacy because of their ripple effects. While branding was early and often in the 1996 one, the creators at least had a sense of self-awareness about how bad it was, and made the branding a funny little joke about how brand obsessed MJ was. This movie has no such sense of humor, and is exponentially heightened by our current state of movie franchising. Warner Brothers wants to let you know ALL of the awesome movie franchises they house in Space Jam: A New Legacy, by putting Looney Toons and Lebron into “funny” famous reenactments of famous scenes from The Matrix, Harry Potter, DC Comics movies, etc; it’s not great when jokes feel more like sales pitches. On the acting/casting side, the creative team behind the first Space Jam knew Jordan wasn’t an actor, but they did know he’s more than charming as himself. So they made the smart decision to insert him into a Looney Toons movie, instead of building the movie around him, making his only real job to have some funny reactions and play basketball, letting Bugs, Daffy, Bill Murray, Charles Barkley, Wayne Knight, and Danny DeVito do all the comedic heavy lifting for him. A New Legacy puts Lebron front and center, making everyone secondary characters revolving around him. You know what’s not great for a kids movie? Sidelining decades proven animated geniuses like Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck. Don Cheadle tries best he can, be he can’t comedically carry a 2 hour movie: that’s not in his skill set.
But the fatal flaw of the movie is in the main story. The 1996 premise is so insane (aliens capture Looney Toons to make them work at space amusement park, challenge them to basketball game) there’s no way to take it seriously, so it’s completely built around silliness beginning to end. A New Legacy’s story is more grounded, and more serious: Lebron isn’t parenting Dom correctly, Dom pushes away from him. That means the first hour of this movie Lebron is playing just a jerk of an ignorant uptight dad, who’s so blinded by his ego it renders the first half nearly unwatchable at times. Not good when you find yourself agreeing with the villain more than the main character for most of the movie. The big game is at least fun, making it into a live action video game, but when Lebron should be learning lessons of humility and swallowing his pride, he takes most of the credit for the team’s success, rendering the message pretty hollow. In fact, when time comes to make the sacrifice one of the Looney Toons steps up instead of Lebron, making all of his resolutions with his son anticlimactic. I wish Malcolm Lee and the other creatives thought just a little harder: set the story while Lebron is about to leave Miami for Cleveland, and make the movie about coming home, which would tie nicely with the Looney Toons story which basically has that message, and how Lebron wants to make a home for his family. That way he doesn’t have to play a douche, he can just be confused about his future and the movie could be more fun.
A Space Jam movie should be fun, not joyless. But unfortunately, branding and poor storyboarding suck most of the jam out of space jam, leaving pointless space in its wake. There wasn’t even a fun song like Space Jam or I Believe I Can Fly, cheesy as they are, for kids to rock out to. But at least Lebron did get to do the great Michael Jordan joke I was waiting for someone to try. I won’t spoil it, but it was one of the bigger laughs in the movie.