Review : 

Ok, so like a few movies I’ve reviewed thus far, the original Space Jam was something I never watched as a kid. I wasn’t raised on watching sports so it never really appealed to me. Obviously being from Illinois I knew who Michael Jordan was and what he meant to Chicago, I didn’t completely live under a rock. But I just didn’t care enough about professional sports to want to watch this movie. The same goes for things like The Sandlot or Field of Dreams, both of which I fully intend to watch eventually – I just haven’t gotten around to it yet. I actually ended up watching the original a few years ago when I was in college, right around the time that this sequel was starting to gain traction. I think it was a fine movie but it did not age well or really vibe with me, I take most of the blame for that because I watched it when I was 22 and not 8.

However, I take none of the blame for not liking this movie. The writing is absolutely deplorable and hardly realistic. There’s an attempt at making a relatable story with LeBron wanting his fake son to be good at basketball, but it just falls so flat when they clash over his interest in video games. Like this isn’t the 90s anymore, video games aren’t going to cause your kids to be burn outs. I won’t get up on my soapbox, but rest assured, I’ve played video games literally everyday since I was 7 and I turned out just fine. With the fake villain of video games having been addressed, let’s talk about the real villain of the movie. Right off the bat, AL G. Rhythm was hysterically bad. Don Cheadle, what are you doing man! You’re better than this. It had to be an opportunity to cash a check so respect for that, but you can’t go from No Sudden Move to this and not expect people to notice. Rhythm’s motivations were dumb and unoriginal, much like the rest of the story. It just doesn’t hit for me and I don’t think that this will be the runaway box office hit that Warner Bros. was hoping for. The acting certainly didn’t help. I applaud LeBron for making the effort because you can see he’s trying, but I don’t think that acting comes naturally to him. It certainly wouldn’t to me either, but it was just too hard to let go. The same goes for the rest of the cast. Why the heck were Steven Yuen and Sarah Silverman in this movie? They added literally nothing other than a familiar face. The same goes for Michael B. Jordan and don’t get me started on the “joke” they used to bring him in. Ugh.

I fully understand that this is a movie for kids, but I really don’t think that there would be many kids who can identify with this movie. Kids know when they’re being targeted and this movie didn’t feel authentically interested in its target audience. It just wanted to capture that Marvel Magic of Easter Eggs and click bait break downs for that free exposure after the movie came out. However, the implementation of said Easter Eggs is poor at best. It was literally just sight gags with LeBron getting a new outfit after every cut. It didn’t have any of the humor or entertaining aspects that the writers hoped it would have. It looks like the studio just threw everything at the wall to see what stuck and unsurprisingly, nothing did. The overall look and feel was overly CGI dependent and the transition from 2D to 3D for the Tunes was jarring for somebody used to 2D animation. I know you can’t escape CGI with a movie like this, but it looked broken and messy.

Bottom line, this movie is terrible and I’m very glad I didn’t waste money on a theater ticket and watched it at home instead. Space Jam : A New Legacy or Product Placement : The Movie, you decide. This is one of those all too frequent sequels that didn’t need to be made. It is an absolute chore to watch.

If you like this, check out : 

• Space Jam
• Looney Toons : Back In Action
• Who Framed Roger Rabbit?