In what I can only assume to be a case of self-deprecating humor from the writers, LeBron James rejects a pitch about him doing a crossover with various Warner Bros. properties in one of the early scenes (Lebron of Thrones! Batman vs. LeBron!). “Athletes acting… that never goes well,” he even utters, and eventually concludes the idea as just “straight up bad.” The movie itself repeatedly mocks its very own existence, but it’s a little too real to joke about, especially from Warner themselves. But alas, Space Jam: A New Legacy arrives all the same to cast an NBA superstar in a lead role to cash in on some ’90s nostalgia, and remind everyone of WB’s various IPs that you’ve probably forgotten.
For what it’s worth, the combination of a real life superstar crossing over with cartoons is generally an entertaining idea. It worked for its predecessor, so it makes sense for Space Jam: A New Legacy not to stray too far from a winning formula. Once again, we have our hero athlete LeBron James assembling a team with Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, and the rest of the Looney Tunes to play a high-stakes basketball game. They will be competing against otherworldly creatures that have been given the skills of real-life contemporary basketball players like Anthony Davis, Klay Thompson, and Diana Taurasi.
But they’re not just going to be playing a game of traditional basketball. This time, the game they must play is called “Dom Ball,” an arcade-style variation on basketball in a similar vein as the video game NBA Jam, where power-ups and styling on your opponents are encouraged to score points. Dom Ball, as its namesake suggests, is made by LeBron’s fictional tech-savvy son Dom (Cedric Joe), whose passion lies in game design and programming over following the footsteps of his superstar father. Friction builds between LeBron and Dom over his disinterest in basketball. A sentient algorithm of Warner, Al-G Rhythm (Don Cheadle), uses this as an opportunity to turn Dom against his father as punishment for rejecting his ideas in the mentioned pitch meeting.
Al-G lures both LeBron and Dom into the Warner Bros. server room and sucks them both into his digital kingdom called the Server-verse. Al-G then challenges LeBron into a game of basketball to get his son back, so he gets sent into the different parts of the Server-verse to form his own team, ultimately landing in Toonland. We learn that Bugs Bunny is the sole inhabitant of Toonland, after Al-G dispersed everyone else into the far reaches of the Server-verse. This is one of the only times we get to see some classic Looney Tunes hijinks, as LeBron transforms into a cartoon version of himself and begins to experience over-the-top things like running into a painted tunnel on the side of a mountain, and falling off a cliff and getting flattened.
What follows is a series of LeBron and Warner Bros. property crossovers (the very idea this movie told us is terrible) as they travel across different movie and TV worlds in search for the missing Looney Tunes characters. LeBron and Bugs Bunny find themselves in Superman: The Animated Series, Mad Max: Fury Road, The Matrix, Casablanca, and Game of Thrones, with several of the Looney Tunes characters living in their worlds. Inserting the characters in different properties is just silly enough to work, and I found them to be quite entertaining (I specifically liked Elmer Fudd as Mini-Me). To be honest, the basic idea of Bugs looking for his missing friends in different worlds is a way more intriguing story, but Space Jam: A New Legacy just turns these references disguised as jokes into one big corporate flex for Warner Bros., as if saying “Hey, remember that we own this property?” What’s worse is when the movie turns it up to eleven and just calls everyone ala Ready Player One – franchises from Scooby Doo to the not-so-kid-friendly A Clockwork Orange – only for them to be audiences in the final game. It could even be too much of a distraction that you just try to recognize everyone than pay attention to what’s happening in the game, which certainly didn’t feel as high stakes as the one in the original.
The self-awareness of Space Jam: A New Legacy may appear to be cheeky, but it overall just leaves a bad taste. Presenting the blending of Warner Bros. properties as villainous, then going ahead and doing it regardless feels like a two-hour commercial for HBO Max, where you can watch the movies these guest characters come from! The original Space Jam had some cultural impact in the ’90s, but this sequel is just pure nostalgia bait. Ironically enough, the message of “be yourself” is parroted repeatedly throughout the film. Maybe this is Warner Bros. just being themselves?
Rating:
The Talking Screen 