“Why are adults commenting on a kids movie?”
Backlash to the backlash to the backlash fuels the internet. Everything gets judged, and everything is fair game until something you like is in the crosshairs. Then it’s time for backlash to backlash and it becomes a Human Centipede of complaining on the internet. That’s what’s happening with LeBron James’ foray into starring in a feature film, rebooting the “Space Jam” universe with a new twist on a 25-year old movie. “Space Jam: A New Legacy” was yet another connection point in talking LeBron or Michael Jordan on the internet.
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James has often found himself compared to Jordan. Sometimes it’s by media, analysts, fans or random Twitter bots. Sometimes it’s by James himself, as he admits he’s chasing the ghost of a man who is still very much alive. Another bullet point of that comparison had been rumored for years with a “Space Jam” reboot starring James. After people wondered whether it would be created and how good of a job James could do in this attempt to remake or reboot or retool a “classic,” it finally came to fruition. As with everything in the media or social media scopes, judgment follows. “Space Jam: A New Legacy” is no different.
Some people are ready to proclaim it as not as good as Jordan’s 1996 version. Some are ready to ride the LeBron hype wave and congratulate him on improving upon the original. And some people are asking that question in the lede of this review: Why are adults commenting on a kids movie?
Here’s the thing, though: “Space Jam: A New Legacy” isn’t a kids movie. Like all wide-reaching commercials — whether they’re 15 seconds before a YouTube video, 88 minutes like the original film or 10 hours like “The Last Dance” — this LeBron movie is for everybody. Or at least, it’s trying to be for everybody. It’s constantly serving up high jinks for kids and jokes as knowing nods to the adults in the room to keep the experience balanced. Also, the existence of cartoons in a movie doesn’t make it a kids movie. I’m not sure the existence of Looney Tunes characters makes it a modern kids movie because I don’t know how relevant the inhabitants of Tune World are for today’s children.
When I asked parents I know about whether their kids know who the Looney Tunes are, the majority of them answered some version of “not really.” A couple of times, I received a “hell no” as an answer. Their children range anywhere from 2 to 17 years old in this very casual survey. Granted, it’s not the most scientific of polling data, but I asked people I thought for sure would have introduced their children to these classic characters. So how do you connect a movie aimed at a young audience to characters they don’t know as the main supporting cast?
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You attach LeBron James. You attach the video game and social media worlds. You attach some Warner Bros. propaganda they might recognize. You attach … Don Cheadle? Sure, why not? He’s been one of the faces of The Avengers movies as War Machine, and plenty of kids have probably happened across an “Ocean’s” heist movie on TNT or TBS.
Full disclosure: I don’t think the original “Space Jam” is a good movie or a classic. I liked it when it came out in 1996. I was 14 years old, and you could have convinced me that Jordan in a movie doing just about anything was going to be the zenith of entertainment. I also was very familiar with Looney Tunes and liked them as well. Rewatching that movie as an adult over the years? It’s pretty bad, which is fine. Some people love the nostalgia. Some people focus on the soundtrack as a reason why the movie holds up. And some people just love bad movies or at least are fascinated by them.
It’s a big reason why I host a podcast with Amin Elhassan and Anthony Mayes called Cinephobe, in which we watch movies that are poorly rated on Rotten Tomatoes and try to ascertain if they’re properly poorly rated or maybe didn’t get a fair shake. Funny enough, the original “Space Jam” doesn’t meet our criteria (40 percent or lower on Rotten Tomatoes for the audience or critics score). It sits at 44 percent from the critics and 63 percent from the audience. But at the time of publishing, this new version does (31 percent critics, 82 percent audience). As we’ve ascertained plenty of times, just because a movie qualifies for our podcast doesn’t mean it’s actually bad.
So what about this LeBron James-Nike-Warner Bros. vehicle? Let’s review it!
(WARNING: SOME SPOILERS EXIST BEYOND THESE WORDS — YOU CAN SCROLL TO THE NEXT SET OF ALL CAPS TYPING TO SEE NON-SPOILER REVIEW BEYOND THAT)
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“Space Jam: A New Legacy” follows the journey of LeBron James from a child told to concentrate on basketball and not a 9-year old GameBoy handheld console to being the biggest basketball star in the world. We get a brief highlight package into LeBron’s journey to his present-day form, and the focus becomes almost squarely on James the parent, rather than James the athlete. He’s trying to shape his boys into basketball players. The oldest follows those instructions. The younger son is more focused on having fun and designing a basketball video game. LeBron wants the focus and all the effort to be poured into concentrating on his sons becoming the best basketball player they can be.
Admittedly, the massaging of the original concept of how to get Michael Jordan to the Tune World to save the day is pretty clever, even in its absurdity. And yes, we can judge the absurdity of a movie in which the premise is a real-life person getting transported to a world to play basketball against mutations with cartoon teammates. LeBron doesn’t want his son to focus on creating video games or even think about going to a video-game design camp over basketball camp. He needs to be more serious about things, as we learn maybe the focus for children should be on fun.
A meeting with movie executives at Warner Bros. Studios brings James into the presence of Al G. Rhythm, played by Don Cheadle. Al G. Rhythm is the processing brain of Warner 3000, a system that can scan LeBron into any movie or entertainment property it has. He can fight Batman. He can be in “Game of Thrones.” He can be a wizard — not in Washington, but in Harry Potter world. This ruins Cheadle’s character because his dream was to use the fame of LeBron to show the world who he is and step out of the shadows of … I’m not quite sure what. Siri? Google? Alexa?
From there, James and his son Dom are led by Al G.’s technology to the server room in the bowels of the studios, where they are zapped into the “Serververse.” Cheadle’s character has now trapped them inside the servers, and the only way to get out is to play him in a game of basketball. Sounds easy enough for LeBron, right? Wrong. Al G. Rhythm has co-opted Dom’s video game to implement and trick him into ignoring all of his dad’s advice over the years. Shortcuts can be had. Fun will reign supreme. He can be him as much as he wants to be him. As LeBron is banished to Tune World to find his squad, Al G. gets Dom to turn his own abilities up to the max, scan in famous athletes (Damian Lillard, Anthony Davis, Diana Taurasi, Nneka Ogwumike and Klay Thompson) to turn into teammates against James and utilize Dom’s technology to scan people into the audience when the game happens.
If LeBron’s team wins, he gets his son back. If he loses, he must stay in the Serververse forever.
LeBron finds Bugs Bunny, and we get a smattering of jokes about this type of event being all too familiar (a nod to the original movie). When LeBron realizes he can use anybody from the Warnerverse to make his team, he’s looking for Superman and King Kong and Iron Giant. Bugs reminds him this isn’t the Miami Heat and he can’t just play with whomever he wants. Consistently throughout the movie, we’re getting jokes for the kids, mostly with a smattering of slapstick from cartoons. Then we’re getting some LeBron jokes for the adults in the crowd. And for those attending the movie hoping for some real basketball, the message of this movie is that basketball can be modified in a cartoonish way to create style points and bonuses that don’t adhere to trying to master a craft for 30-plus years in pursuit of a ghost, who is once again still very much alive.
Not to mention, Davis has been merged with a bird, Lillard has been turned into a clock monster, Taurasi is a giant snake, Ogwumike is a spider-hybrid and Thompson is both water and fire but not in an identity crisis sort of way. Probably not getting real basketball in that situation, and LeBron has to eventually learn to allow people to be themselves and stop trying to mold everybody into trying to be him. Most importantly, that’s the message for him as a dad to his son. Win, and they save everybody who was scanned into the server. Lose, and they’re prisoners forever.
(END OF SPOILERS FOR THIS MOVIE REVIEW SO FEEL FREE TO READ EASY FROM BEYOND THESE WORDS)
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I went into this movie with very low expectations. If I wasn’t reviewing this for The Athletic or possibly for the Cinephobe podcast now that it qualifies, I don’t know if I would have watched this anytime soon. Some of that is residue from having my nostalgia shattered when I watched the original as an adult. Some of that is because I wasn’t terribly interested in the 114-minute commercial presented here by Warner Bros. Not in some anti-capitalism movement way either. I just feel like a two-hour movie commitment in today’s age of minimal attention spans is a tough sell when it’s a subject you’re not dying to see.
For example: Nicolas Cage is playing a truffle hunter looking to find his kidnapped foraging pig in a movie that comes out this weekend, it’s only 92 minutes and I’m wondering why it isn’t longer than “The Irishman.” We all have our kinks when it comes to cinema, and the new iteration of “Space Jam” just wasn’t mine going into this weekend.
For those who want a basketball movie, it’s not really that. It’s a movie about fatherhood and video games and learning to be yourself. The message and the pathos of it surrounding carefully placed closeup shots of the “Space Jam: A New Legacy” colorway LeBron shoes that can probably only be bought from gougers on the secondary market are actually quite meaningful, in theory. In general, there are good lessons to be extracted from the movie for kids and the whole family. There’s plenty of merchandising opportunities for LeBron, his various sponsors, Warner Bros. and extended properties to greatly profit off this. And while critics may not be loving what James and company have cooked up here, it’s already doing well at the box office. The movie outperformed expectations on opening night Friday, grossing $13.1 million at nearly 4,000 theaters domestically.
Hi Haters! 😁 https://t.co/ayPGnBZGQU
— LeBron James (@KingJames) July 17, 2021
That’s not bad at all, considering I’m not sure how many people are going to theaters again quite yet. And it will help be a salve for James if he’s feeling the burn of critics ripping this movie apart.
In my opinion, nearly two hours for what some are alleging to be a kids movie is highly ambitious. Of the top-rated kids/family movies of the 2010s, only “Coco” is right around the 114-minute mark (113 minutes). Movies such as “The Lego Movie,” “Moana” and “Toy Story 4” range in the 95- to 103-minute mark. “Zootopia” clocked in at 109 minutes. “Space Jam 2: A New Legacy” isn’t beautiful art like “Coco,” but it also isn’t some slog like a lot of two-hour movies can be. I question if it can keep the attention of the children watching it in the theaters. Maybe a couple of sittings at home on HBO Max is the way to go, but that’s up for parents to decide.
There are enough nostalgia and references to the entertainment and LeBron basketball worlds to keep adults from wanting the power to cut out. Although maybe throwing Pennywise from the “It” movies right behind the Goon Squad bench was a bit much. But what do I know? Maybe the evil clown from hell that murders children is exactly what they wanted to put there to set the tone on the stakes of losing this game.
There are probably enough jokes, slapstick moments, video-game triggers and dazzling displays to keep a child engaged. Maybe they don’t know Looney Tunes. But if they like video games and special effects, they’ll probably wonder what comes next. Some of the writing is downright horrific, and it’s not just the robotic way in which James delivers some of his lines. At least six people took a pass at penning this script, and it’s an example of having too many cooks in the kitchen for a creative process. But they also poke fun at athletes acting with a wink toward the camera. They reference how this has been done before. There’s even a really well-executed Michael Jordan cameo joke that warmed this cynical heart and caused a laugh.
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Why are adults commenting on a kids movie? Because it’s a movie aimed at everybody, not just kids. It’s a movie hoping to trigger the inner child in the adults as the prospective audience and get them to plop down money to see if it’s better than the first one. And it’s what we do on the internet. We critique any and everything. For the most part, this wasn’t nearly as bad as I expected it to be. I’m not sure if it’s good either. It’s way too long for what it is. I just know I watched it and didn’t hate that I watched it. For a man of my age, that’s probably a win, even though LeBron didn’t get me to watch it at a movie theater.
On a scale of LeBron failing to post up JJ Barea in the NBA Finals to executing the first 3-1 comeback in NBA Finals history with the Cleveland Cavaliers, I rate this movie probably that time LeBron led the Cavs past Detroit in the 2007 playoffs only to be swept by San Antonio in the NBA Finals. It’s a good, valiant effort that didn’t lead to the ultimate goal, but it sets him and SpringHill Company up for plenty of successful entertainment opportunities in the future.
(Photo: Jordan Strauss / Invision / AP)
