MANILA, PHILIPPINES — In 1996, Michael Jordan had just returned from his first retirement from basketball and wanted to return to the NBA mountaintop. Before the new NBA season though, he began shooting a movie featuring the Loony Tunes characters like Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, etc. That film would go on to be the worldwide hit known as Space Jam and Michael would proceed to win the next three NBA titles with the Chicago Bulls. Now, 25 years later, the man many have said is the closest to challenging Jordan’s stature as the greatest basketball player of all time has taken on the challenge of doing a sequel to Space Jam. Does LeBron James’ venture measure up?
When a young LeBron James is shown playing with a classic Nintendo Game Boy instead of focusing on a basketball game at hand, he fails to score a gamewinner. This makes him dedicate himself to basketball and eventually leads to him being the number one overall draft pick by the Cleveland Cavaliers in the NBA. After winning titles with the Miami Hear, Cavaliers, and Los Angeles Lakers, LeBron is enjoying life with his family.
His second son, Dom (Cedric Joe) also loves video games and would rather play and design video games than play basketball than older brother Darius (Ceyair J. Wright), much to LeBron’s disappointment. Even as wife Kamiyah (Sonequa Martin-Green) reminds LeBron to respect his son’s desires, he relents.
As father and son are invited to a Warner Bros. pitch meeting for a movie deal, the artificial intelligence known as Al-G Rhythm, (Don Cheadle) blows up after LeBron rejects his ideas. Al-G becomes self-aware and manipulates Dom to join him, promising to improve the game that the kid designed and holding him prisoner. The A.I. then tells LeBron to assemble a basketball team from among the worlds in the Warner Bros. server-verse, and that only if LeBron’s team wins will Dom be released.
LeBron is dumped on Tune World and turns into a toon, but finds that Bugs Bunny (Jeff Bergman) is the lone inhabitant. Sharing his dilemma with Bugs, LeBron is then dragged by the bunny to other worlds to gather his fellow toons. Bugs is convinced that bringing his friends together can help them win the basketball game. Meanwhile, Al-G is gathering his own team of world class players, determined to beat LeBron at all costs.
In the years between the first film and Space Jam: A New Legacy, it would be a massive understatement to say that technology has improved by leaps and bounds. Perhaps nowhere is that more evident than in the animation seen here as Bugs and the other Looney Tunes were shown in three dimensions using computer generated imagery and the on-court action was allowed to be more colorful and louder than ever before.
Even the colors of the jerseys and shoes of the competing teams, the playing court, and the surrounding arena are so much bigger and more audacious than what we saw when MJ first played with the Tune Squad. Those same graphics allowed the “Goon Squad” composed of animated versions of Anthony Davis, Damian Lillard, Klay Thompson, Diana Taurasi, and Nneka Ogwumike to dazzle with their individual abilities and not just be presented as stronger and faster than the toons.
What this Space Jam lacks more than the previous one, however, is that it just felt empty and without a soul. Whereas actors stood in to play Jordan’s real life family previously, the sequel saw actors play not even LeBron’s family composed of wife Savannah, sons Bronny and Bryce, and daughter Zhuri. It might be a minor quibble but with James being such a public figure whose family has basically grown up in the spotlight, it makes one wonder why they didn’t just adapt these real names for the film.
As for the story, the premise to kidnap Dom and manipulate him to play against his dad through a malevolent computer program is so paper thin and the acting talents of Cheadle are completely wasted here. He goes for loudness and ham acting rather than the subtlety and nuance that he’s been known for. When we see the server-verse and are bombarded with images of characters under the Warner Bros. umbrella, it’s like director Malcolm D. Lee was told to show as much as he can, as Warner Bros. was basically showing off about everything under their auspices.
James himself feels like he’s overcompensating rather than acting naturally, particularly when he’s interacting with his “son” or when he’s trying to motivate his teammates. He has to be given credit for being willing to be the butt of jokes and dealing with perceptions of him since entering the public consciousness, but there’s a lack of authenticity that is evident. The soundtrack of Space Jam was also memorable for producing the title track by Quad City DJ’s, Seal’s remake of “Fly Like an Eagle,” “For You I Will” by Monica, and the now-classic “I Believe I Can Fly” by R. Kelly that even won two Grammy Awards. This sequel’s soundtrack though is largely forgettable and generic, and probably won’t win any recognition.
Before anyone argues that Space Jam: A New Legacy was made for children, so was the original Space Jam, and that first film was so much more fun despite being more subdued. In its attempt to be bigger and louder than the original, this sequel turned out more empty and less fun.
