Welcome to this week’s edition of the Nerd Review!  Every week the Nerds give you their take on a different movie from the Nerdosphere.  This week, Patrick flies solo and reviews the Lebron James/Looney Tunes film Space Jam A New Legacy

The Flick:  Space Jam: A New Legacy

What’s it About: Angry at being rejected by Lebron James, an angry Artificial Intelligence kidnaps, James and his son into the virtual world.  The AI challenges James to a basketball game or be deleted forever.  James must team up with Bugs Bunny and the rest of the Looney Tune gang to defeat the evil AI and save the world.

Metacritic Score: 36

The Nerds’ Take on Space Jam: A New Legacy (2021):

Patrick:  Dave decided Disneyland was more important than the Nerd Review this week so, dear reader, you are stuck with me and my lone review of Space Jam: A New Legacy.  The little O’Dowd made it inevitable I would be catching this sequel on HBO Max come release day.  I had some interest in the movie as I have some affection for the Michael Jordan original.  Space Jam: A New Legacy is nowhere near as good as its predecessor.  I didn’t hate it, but the film is loaded with some seriously annoying flaws.  Those flaws weren’t enough to turn off the little O’Dowd, which left me thinking kids will enjoy the movie in ways adults may not.

The plot of the film is similar to the Michael Jordan original with the twist that Lebron needs the help of the Looney Tunes to join his team this time around as opposed to Bugs and company needing Jordan’s help.  You see, a self-aware algorithm named Al G. Rhythm (get it?) chooses Lebron James as the perfect celebrity to endorse him.  Al manipulate Warner Brothers executives into reaching out to James and pitching him to utilize Al’s technology to feature him in their next film.  When Lebron turns them down and calls the technology stupid, Al devises a way to bring James and his son into the virtual world.  Al Promises Lebron that he can be let go if, of course, Lebron can beat his evil basketball team.  Al then tells Lebron he can assemble his players from any characters in the Warner Brothers Universe…before sending James to Looney Tunes World.

There Lebron meets Bugs Bunny, the lone inhabitant of Looney Toons land.  It turns out, Al tempted all of Bugs’ friends away with promises of better lives in other WB properties.  Bugs tricks Lebron into helping him regain his friends by “helping” Lebron find players.  Bugs does, but only by sending Lebron to lands where other Looney Tunes are living.  Naturally, Al has assembled a team of super evil players by using Lebron’s son Dom’s video game program to make players based on real pros.  Al also manipulates Dom into siding with the goons by playing on Dom’s resentments of his father.  Everything culminates in a basketball showdown between the Tune Squad and the evil Goon Squad.  I won’t spoil the ending, but I am sure you can guess which team won.

I’m going to start with the good here.  The animation in this film is first rate.  Audiences are treated to a classic Looney Tunes look, including an animated Lebron James, to some higher tech appearing computer graphics designed to make the Tunes “real”.  It is pretty well done and the overall look of the movie was the better for the animation work.  There is also plenty of Looney Tune slapstick for audiences to enjoy.  As I mentioned earlier, the little O’Dowd was all for watching this movie and it was the fun Looney Tune characters that engaged him.  None of the jokes/sight gags/etc. are particularly ground breaking, but they were certainly fresh for my child.  Wile E. Coyote and his multiplier machine was a particularly high note.

As far as the cast, the voice acting is very good, with a specific hats off to Jeff Bergman who had the daunting task of voicing Bugs.  Simply stated he nails it.  The real highlight of the movie though has to be the villainous Al G. Rhythm played by the great Don Cheadle.  Cheadle hams it up so, so well and you can tell the dude was just out there having the time of his life.  He’s silly, sneaky, maniacal and fun for the duration of the movie.

Lebron James however was…fine?  He didn’t struggle delivering lines, and he did well interacting with his animated green screen counterparts.  So, what was the problem here?  Lebron James the Space Jam character is kind of a terrible person and father.  He is obsessed with molding his sons into future basketball stars even when it is clear that Dom has no interest in the game.  LeBron goes all Mommy Dearest on Dom when he reveals he doesn’t want to go to basketball camp.  Frankly, I completely understood why Dom would so quickly side with Al.  His dad was an asshole.  It really took away from the movie because I struggled to cheer for the hero.

The other big problem with this film is that it is a two hour long Warner Brothers love fest.  Look, I get that there was going to be some property placement.  That becomes clear from the moment Al pulls Lebron his world.  But, man, they really drill the audience over the head with it.  Did you know Warner Brothers owned the rights to Harry Potter movies?  Well, if you didn’t Voldermort is at the big game to let you know.  DC?  Hey!  They’ve got Wonder Woman too! Although I have to admit, I liked her sequence of scenes with Lola Bunny.  The audience sees King Kong, The Iron Giant, Hanna Barbara characters like Yogi Bear.  I mean Pennywise the dancing f’n Clown makes an appearance.  That’s right, a child eating alien clown is front and center at the big basketball game for no reason I can fathom other than Warner Brothers could use him.

Which brings me to my rating.  If I were rating Space Jam A New Legacy solely on its merit as a film, I would rate it far lower than where I landed.  It’s hard for me to get behind a movie that is little more than a billboard for a giant corporation.  Couple that with a protagonist who is a pretty terrible parent and a fairly mundane story, I should be giving this movie a score under a 2.  But I have to step back and look at this film through the eyes of its intended audience.  So I asked, the Little O’ Dowd what he would score Space Jam and his response, “7/5.”  That tells me that despite my problems with the movie, children will likely love it.  My son isn’t even all that into basketball, yet after watching A New Legacy he demanded we immediately watch the original.  Therefore, I’m going to split the difference here and score Space Jam: A New Legacy just a shade over 2.5.

Nerds’ (Patrick’s) Rating on Space Jam: A New Legacy: 2.63/5.0