Top 10 Reasons Why Space Jam: A New Legacy Sucks
WARNING: Obviously, this list has spoilers for Space Jam: A New Legacy. This list is also mostly based off of personal opinion, so if you actually liked Space Jam: A New Legacy, your opinion will be respected. With that in mind, let's start the list!
Now, I get that the original Space Jam wasn't much better in this regard - heck, the original movie was based off of a Super Bowl Nike commercial featuring Bugs Bunny. However, it feels like this movie turned the advertising up to 11, because you can't go five seconds in this movie without seeing advertisements for Warner Bros, HBO Max, Nike, the NBA, or even E3! It's just as bad (or perhaps even worse) than The Emoji Movie.
This film is simply disgusting, dressing up a journey through Warner Bros properties as "plot".
The most obvious scene to point to for this entry would be the Porky Pig rapping scene, which was already stale and cliche by the time the original Space Jam came out, but to be honest, there's a lot of scenes to pick from, such as Granny talking about Twitter, Speedy Gonzales parodying that one Matrix scene (you know the one), the WB executive saying "you're cancelled", or LeBron James dabbing. None of these scenes advance the plot in any way, shape, or form, but instead, they make the movie a cringy, pandering slog.
Space Jam 2 keeps trying to be emotional, especially with the plot about LeBron and his son, and Bugs Bunny nearly dying at the end. However, none of it's attempts at being emotional work, since, well, it's A MOVIE ABOUT THE LOONEY TUNES PLAYING BASKETBALL. All it does is make the movie feel hammier than it needs to be. Also, the emotional scenes are extremely cliche, and you can immediately predict how they are going to turn out.
If you have a keen eye, you'll be able to notice that several models in the background are stolen from other WB movies. The most obvious stolen model is the Iron Giant, who has his model stolen from Ready Player One, but there's also a few Hanna Barbera characters that have their models stolen from Scoob. There's also a cameo made by the Nerdlucks from the first movie in two scenes, except both of their cameos literally just reuse animation from the first movie (and the animation isn't even used right - they cheer for the villains and against the Looney Tunes, despite them reforming and becoming friendly to the Looney Tunes by the end of the first movie).
After the premiere of Space Jam 2, an animator named Dave Alvarez came out with an allegation that Warner Bros. did not credit him in the movie, despite him working hard on the movie (more specifically, on stuff that was ACTUALLY IN THE FINAL PRODUCT). Imagine dedicating a year to a product only for your name to be excluded from said product.
Now, I get that Michael Jordan wasn't a very good actor either, due to his very stiff and stoic performance. However, LeBron is even worse, since they're constantly trying to force him to emote, despite the fact it just doesn't work. A perfect example is the scene where he's falling down a cliff in a truck, and he's screaming. However, the screaming is so quiet, it doesn't feel genuine in the slightest. At least you could interpret Michael Jordan as sort of an everyman. LeBron's performance just doesn't work at all.
Now, if I do have to give the movie credit in one department, I will say I appreciate how it doesn't constantly jump back and forth between several plotlines and scenes like the first one did. That being said, the pacing is still horrible. It takes an hour for them to get to the basketball game, and then another hour for the basketball game to end. Also, when they're introducing the Looney Tunes, in the span of only a minute, they introduce Elmer Fudd, Sylvester, Yosemite Sam, and Taz, all the while they promote Austin Powers, Casablanca, and Rick and Morty.
The only reason why this movie was made was to nostalgia bait millennials into seeing it and making a crap ton of cash. Heck, I remember seeing Space Jam back around 2015, and I was almost suckered into watching the movie in theaters because of my nostalgia for Space Jam 1. This shows that it's no better than any of the live-action Disney remakes that just rely on nostalgia for money.
Seriously, most of the scenes involving LeBron James just have the characters go on and on about how he's the "king", and how he's the "best player of all time". Heck, even the villain refers to LeBron only as "King James"! Greedy much?
Another flaw shared with the original movie, except in a different way. During the basketball game, all of the Looney Tunes become 3D models, and while some of them look okay, there's also plenty of them that look ugly. Most notably is Lola Bunny, who looks hideous, but there are other characters that just look wrong, like Porky and Elmer Fudd.
Well it also had other adult rated characters like Pennywise & Rick and morty. Most of the kids wouldn't know who the droogs are anyways. Doesn't really matter in my opinion although I also hated this movie.
This is my only complaint with this movie.
Even I thought this was a dumb idea.
Gee, a movie about a hero traveling to several planets themed to certain media franchises inside a server that contains countless pop culture references...now where have I heard of that before?
This happened to me.