Review: Space Jam

Nasty aliens capture the beloved Looney Tunes cartoon characters but said characters manage to convince the aliens to partake in a game of basketball to decide their fate instead. The nasty aliens, being nasty aliens, cheat and steal the talents of just about every big-time basketball star you can think of. But the Looney Tunes characters have one ace up their sleeve; retired NBA star turned mediocre baseball player Michael Jordan! Charles Barkley and Bill Murray play versions of themselves, Wayne Knight plays a baseball publicist, and Theresa Randle fakes being Jordan’s wife.

 

From what I’ve heard, part of the reason why director Joe Dante wanted to do “Looney Tunes: Back in Action” was to make up for this 1996 flick directed by Joe Pytka (“Let it Ride”, and several Michael Jackson music videos). I don’t know exactly why Dante doesn’t seem to be a fan of “Space Jam”, but I have a feeling he’d agree with a lot of the problems I had with this awful Michael Jordan vehicle masquerading as a Looney Tunes flick. For starters, the voices are all wrong, despite the same person voicing Bugs Bunny in both this and “Looney Tunes: Back in Action”. I don’t recall having a problem with it in that film, but here, the voices of Bugs, Daffy Duck, and especially Foghorn Leghorn and Pepe La Pew are absolutely positively wrong. Only Porky Pig manages to sound just about right, but let’s face it, most people can do a pretty decent Porky Pig imitation, so that’s no surprise. This matters. The Muppets voices to my ears haven’t changed all that much since Jim Henson’s death, but the Looney Tunes characters here just didn’t sound right to me.

 

Worst of all, however, the film’s basketball-centred plot results in the beloved cartoon characters being robbed of any uniqueness and old foes end up playing alongside one another in a basketball match just to pimp Michael Jordan. Marvin the Martian on the same team as Bugs Bunny? Fuck off. Apparently the film is inspired by a Pepsi commercial where Bugs and Jordan teamed up to take on Marvin’s team. That was closer to the right idea. Dispensing with basketball altogether would’ve been even better. I’m sorry, but my interest in basketball lasted about six months when I was 11 years-old. I can’t stand to watch it now. And Lola Bunny? Hell no, the only girl bunny in a Looney Tunes cartoon should be played by Bugs Bunny in drag. Then again, with a name like Lola, who knows what’s she’s hiding, am I right? The plot is embarrassingly flimsy- how could Ivan Reitman (“Twins”, “Ghostbusters”) lower himself to produce this crap? How did it end up making so much money? Didn’t word of mouth eventually spread? This isn’t Looney Tunes, it’s a Happy Meal. Except the toy is an already broken piece of crap.

 

The dopey alien antagonists (including their leader voiced by Danny De Vito) are another way to piss off purists. The animation itself is sadly not much better, as the animators for some reason have attempted to add shadow and shine to the characters that only results in dating the film very badly. It’s a terribly heavy-handed, charmless visual approach. Even the integration of animation and live-action is surprisingly bad. It’s actually even worse than 1988’s “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?”, when it’s supposed to be the other way around, isn’t it?

 

Perhaps the biggest sin of all is that none of the cartoon characters are allowed to be remotely funny, and the only chuckles come from Bill Murray, who probably wasn’t even trying very hard. And this is in a film where Michael Jordan stretches himself by playing a basketball player turned crappy baseball player. The man has zero charisma. A great athlete, dull human being, and I’m sorry, was I supposed to sympathise with someone who was the best at one sport but decided to be crap at another sport? I have no sympathy for someone like that, sorry. Wayne Knight (Newman!) is always fun to see, but unfortunately isn’t seen often enough. Meanwhile, Charles Barkley is a slightly more engaging screen presence than Jordan, but not nearly good enough to save this film from being ‘turrible’.

 

This is the first time in my life that I haven’t laughed once at Daffy or Marvin. I also hated the film’s inexplicably popular soundtrack. Aside from Seal’s surprisingly cool cover version of Steve Miller Band’s ‘Fly Like an Eagle’, we’re forced to endure ‘Whoomp! (There it Is)’, and R. Kelly’s overplayed ‘I Believe I Can Fly’, as well as songs by Busta Rhymes, 2 Unlimited and (the sometimes cool) Spin Doctors.

 

This film does not love Looney Tunes. It’s using Looney Tunes to sell Michael Jordan and basketball, and to make loads of money. At best, it should’ve been a five minute short before a real movie. The material is thinner than thin could be. It also fails to provide adults with any entertainment whatsoever, unlike real Looney Tunes cartoons have and should. Hell, even kids deserve better than this crap.

 

If you love basketball and shite mid 90s R&B, maybe you’ll get something out of this film. All others are advised to stay away, especially fans of Looney Tunes characters who will find it a chore. Looney Tunes should never be a chore. The screenplay is by Leo Benvenuti, Steve Rudnick (who both later wrote the watchable Will Ferrell vehicle “Kicking & Screaming”), Timothy Harris and Herschel Weingrod (who both contributed to “Trading Places”, “Twins”, and “Kindergarten Cop”). I doubt any of them are Looney Tunes fans.

 

Rating: D