It’s true that Space Jam: A New Legacy soared past other movies at the box office. Did anyone think that it wouldn’t? It’s a movie with LeBron James, the Looney Tunes, and it’s titled Space Jam, there was no way it was going to do anything less, but there’s something else that needs to be mentioned. The movie was all kinds of ridiculous. It’s been said more than once but it has to be said again, this was yet another ego trip for LeBron James and it’s not an exaggeration since the only one really served in this movie was him, and strangely enough, the movie was supposed to be about his role as a father and how he was trying to do right by his son. Let’s be fair and state that the first Space Jam was almost all about Michael Jordan, but it was also about his transition from basketball to baseball, and how disastrous it really was. Plus, the original Space Jam didn’t suffer from the absolute glut of self-serving madness that WB put into this movie since the moment that LeBron is sucked into the Serververse by the villainous algorithm, or Al G. Rhythm, the onslaught of images takes over as the audience is inundated with one WB property after another.
And as if that weren’t enough when it comes time to retrieve the Tunes, as they’ve all gone on to bigger and better things courtesy of interference from Al G., we get to see even MORE WB properties, such as Daffy Duck and Porky Pig in the DC universe, or Foghorn Leghorn riding a dragon from Game of Thrones, and of course, Lola Bunny competing to become an Amazonian warrior in Wonder Woman. Oh no, that wasn’t it, that was just the warm-up. But throughout the movie, it’s made pretty clear that the only competition for attention is between LeBron and Bugs Bunny, since everyone, even the villain and LeBron’s son, are kind of secondary characters that don’t quite matter as much.
Had the movie toned down the LeBron portion of things a bit it might have been a little better, but as it is, the Tunes were the best part of the whole thing. The redesign of Lola Bunny wasn’t as big of a deal as people are making out, and the loss of Pepe LePew is still kind of questionable considering the practices that WB still allows, but the flash and pomp of this movie when it came to the WB pulling out all the stops was enough to make a lot of people cringe as almost every property was on display. At least the first Space Jam didn’t have the Iron Giant and King Kong sitting in the stands. And the stolen catchphrases and puns? Huh boy, it was like bad comedy night and Don Cheadle was being given all the worst lines. Going into this movie it was easy to remain calm and just let things happen. Without any real expectations, it was possible to think that maybe a lot of us that were saying that the sequel could never live up to the first movie would change our minds. Nope.
LeBron can clap back at haters all he wants and point to how much the movie made, since it’s true, it did make a good amount of money over the first weekend and knocked all other movies out of the top spot. But keep in mind it’s a Space Jam movie, kids and adults that saw the original as kids were bound to want to go see and thereby drive up ticket sales, subscription sales, and whatever other sales were needed to make it a success. But the fact is that while some might have liked it, others saw right through “King James” and weren’t impressed. Movies today are once again relying too heavily on some of the wrong people to earn their popularity, and the idea of a Space Jam 3 is now on the books apparently, with Dwayne Johnson as the desired individual for the movie. If it turned from “Jam” into “Slam” it would definitely be a good idea since then Johnson, who is actually a likable guy and great actor, could take over and show LeBron how to do it.
That’s a long shot though since not only is Johnson continually busy, but it’s not even certain that he would say yes to such a thing. There’s always a chance though, even if it’s a slim one since he’s the kind of guy that actually likes to take on a challenge and has a track record of meeting said challenges. Space Jam 2 wasn’t the worst movie in the world, but it’s hard to call it worthy of the first one, especially since the tone was so different.
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