THAT'S ALL, FOLKS!
Space Jam's plot wonky
I'm calling foul. Not sure if it's carrying or travelling, technical or flagrant, but Space Jam: A
New Legacy isn't half the film that 1996's Space Jam was. Well, that's not quite true. It's actually approaching twice the film. The original Space Jam, starring sports legend Michael Jordan and Bugs Bunny, clocked in at a trim 87 minutes. It wasn't a great movie, but it engenders fond memories in a certain cohort of millennials who recall its Looney action. (We Gen Xers had the — sniff — far superior Who Framed Roger Rabbit a few years earlier.)
A New Legacy, on the other hand, runs an hour and 55 minutes (that's more than two full basketball games!) and spends almost a quarter of that time just setting up the plot. And to quote a certain B. Bunny, it's a lulu!
Scene one gives us a young Lebron James growing up in
1998 Akron, Ohio. (No mention of whether he saw the first film just two years earlier.) Scene two, Lebron and his two sons — not his real sons, mind you — in the present day, discussing basketball. And then, a few shameless commercials for Warner Bros. later, we're into the story.
Seems an evil algorithm named Al G. Rhythm (Don Cheadle, looking pained), has decided to kidnap young Dom Lebron (Cedric Joe), and hold him hostage in the Warner 3000 Server-verse, a kind of digital realm of all things Warner. (Did we mention this film was from Warner?) Lebron has to beat Al's hand-picked team of pro basketball avatars in a game in order to save his son.
We know this detail because he says it on no fewer than nine different occasions. It's as if the six screenwriters who worked on A New Legacy each threw it in once or twice to remind people, and director Malcolm D. Lee never thought to do any editing.
There are so many things wrong with this wonky (notice I didn't say Looney) plot, starting with the fact that an evil algorithm inside the Warner Bros. studio sounds like the kind of idea that would be dreamt up by an evil algorithm inside the Warner Bros. studio.
Also, the weird decision to cast Sarah Silverman and Steven Yeun — fine actors both — in throwaway, not-funny bits as studio lackeys.
Oh, and the shameless positioning of Warner as “the studio behind all the classics.” I mean, I guess if you don't count Jaws, Rear Window, It Happened
One Night, The Sound of Music or WALL-E among the classics. Also, Warner Bros. wasn't “behind” The Wizard of Oz, unless they mean 60 years behind. The studio bought the rights from MGM at the turn of the century. In any case, the movie then gives itself endless free throws of references to actual WB titles, including Casablanca, Game of Thrones, The Matrix, Superman, Mad Max and Austin Powers.
And you can add Ready Player One in the sense that there is a huge crowd of courtside pop-culture figures watching the game — although the more attention you pay to them, the more you realize they look like cosplayers who came third in a look-alike contest. This is a rare instance in which blink-and-you'll-miss-it is not a suggestion to keep your eyes open, but to shut them.
What does A New Legacy have going for it? Well, its human star's got game. Lebron (seems weird to follow regular style and call him “James”), is relaxed and watchable in the role. And the Tunes retain their distinct personalities and voices, which are provided by Jeff Bergman (Bugs), Zendaya (Lola Bunny), and Canadian voice artist Eric Bauza as, get this, Daffy Duck, Porky
Pig, Elmer Fudd, Marvin the Martian and I say, I say Foghorn Leghorn too!
So if you trimmed about 30 minutes from the running time — most of it in the first half — and dialed down Cheadle's character (or just got someone else and let him go do better things with his time) — well, you'd have the makings of a decent sequel. As it stands, Space Jam: A New Legacy breaks several laws of good followup filmmaking. At least, I think it does — you see, I never studied law.