Why did the long-awaited follow-up to Michael Jordan’s 1996 hybrid animated/live-action sports comedy, NBA legend LeBron James teaming up with the Looney Tunes, this time to take on Al-G Rhythm (Don Cheadle) and his villainous coded basketball players in the virtual ServerVerse.
Space Jam: A New Legacy: is projected to gross a significant amount of money at the box office, but the actual critic and audience consensus of the movie has been poor. While ESPN has unsurprisingly given Space Jam 2 a glorious review, most reputable movie critics and outlets have agreed the movie is a major disappointment. So far, the sequel holds a rotten 32 percent critics rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a 3.7/10 rating on ratings on Rotten Tomatoes at 44 percent, though was given an exemplary 3.5/4 stars by legendary film critic Roger Ebert.
Most of the poor reviews have been quick to point out Space Jam: A New Legacy’s lack of fun humor and earnest light-heartedness, overt promotion of Warner Bros. property, disappointment with celebrity and NBA roles, and the long two-hour runtime compared to Space Jam’s 87 minutes. Aside from a few outliers, these reviews back up why Space Jam: A New Legacy was a disappointment after all of the movie's hype and a quarter-century wait.
“Despite LeBron James’ best efforts to make a winning team out of the Tune Squad, Space Jam: A New Legacy trades the zany, meta-humor of its predecessor for a shameless and tired exercise in IP-driven boarding.”
"While LeBron recruits his scrappy team, Warner Bros. makes us watch a long HBO Max ad. Mad Max, Austin Powers, Rick and Morty, Batman, Harry Potter, Casablanca and more flash across the screen in a montage, as if to brag about the studio’s extensive catalog. It’s one of director Malcolm D. Lee’s many strategies to avoid developing characters or having funny scenes."
Vox:
"I think Space Jam: A New Legacy is best viewed as an apocalyptic movie... the concept seems to be 'make a two-hour commercial for HBO Max,' the streaming service that houses the many IPs owned by Warner Bros., which in turn owns HBO. This Space Jam installment is extremely bent on making sure you know how many of the properties you love belong to the WB."
One of the most criticized aspects of Space Jam: A New Legacy is that the new movie is essentially a 2 hour long, $150 million unabashed ment for Warner Bros and HBO Max’s properties. Harry Potter, DC, Mad Max, Austin Powers, Casablanca (Turner Classic Movies), Rick & Morty (Adult Swim), and Game of Thrones are all featured when an animated LeBron goes through the digital world, making an obvious spectacle Warner Bros. franchises and HBO Max’s properties, reducing the integrity of a movie that is already supposed to be ridiculous in nature.
"The core issues of the film – its numbing swirls of rainbow light popping out every which way, the excruciating pop-culture catchphrases ed off as humor, LeBron’s stilted, if game, acting, the half-a**edness with which it delivers the dusty moral to be yourself, the fact that it is unably one half-hour longer than its predecessor – all seem minor in comparison with the insidious ulterior intentions that power this fandom dynamo"
"Space Jam: A New Legacy gives us one good franchise mash up before it all becomes nauseating. To say that it’s a CGI-fuelled eyesore, or that watching it feels like being beaten into submission by the fists of capitalism, is a given."
"Lee throws everything he has at the screen trying to produce a cartoon version of the corporate synergy achieved by "Avengers: Endgame." It's no go. This mashup of corporate product placement is less a slam dunk than an overcaffeinated exercise in excess."
Of course, some fans will enjoy the game of Where's Wally, picking out each moment another IP appears on screen. But it seems Space Jam: A New Legacy has mostly failed to deliver on the character and plot required to make it an overall enjoyable experience.
