Space Jam: A New Legacy (2021) Review

Space Jam: A New Legacy (2021)

Following the kidnapping of his son into the Warner Bros. serververse, A New Legacy follows LeBron James as he must assemble the Tune Squad for a game that will determine the fate of the toons and humanity as a whole. 

Well…my monumentally low expectations were met. When making another Space Jam movie, you have to realistically look at your primary audience—the kids who grew up loving the original, now adults. I understand marketing this towards a new generation of kids, but not enough kids even know who the Looney Tunes are, let alone enjoy the original (it’s a nostalgia thing). Warner however decided to make this less about Space Jam and more about one ginormous marketing campaign to advertise everything they’ve got the rights to. I don’t really understand this trend they’ve gotten into, where they throw all their marbles into one bag, but the Lego movies, Ready Player One, Teen Titans Go, and now this, it’s getting redundant and quite frankly, feels cheap as hell because it takes away from the movie. Let this film stand on its own two feet, we don’t need to keep seeing every property you own showing up in your movies as some weird marketing ploy. 

Getting to the rest of the movie though, it’s just a weird mess that feels aimed at the prepubescent Youtube crowd, meaning it’s just a corny cringefest to watch. The animated sequences were actually done quite well and when it deviated from the main story, it shined the most, letting itself just focus on the Tunes and LeBron. The overall game that the film builds towards though has its moments but is, again, just a way to showcase all the characters Warner owns, taking away from the experience. 

We get a pretty standard cast, starring Sonequa Martin-Green, Cedric Joe, Zendaya, Jeff Bergman, Eric Bauza, Don Cheadle, and LeBron James. Cheadle puts in another paycheck performance (same thing he’s been doing since joining the MCU) that is downright bad, and while James obviously isn’t an actor, he’s certainly no MJ, though he does command a decent presence on the floor. 

Space Jam: A New Legacy, directed by Malcom D. Lee, is a ridiculous cash grab that doesn’t even attempt to recapture some of the magic that made the original so enjoyable, falling flat with bad writing, lackluster performances, and a stupid story, but sure, I hope the references were worth it. 

2.9/10