Space Jam 2: A Soulless Commerical For HBO Max

Space Jam: A New Legacy is essentially a bland advertising campaign for Warner Bros’s streaming platform – HBO Max. Staring LeBron James, the movie follows the same formula as its predecessor – a famous basketball champion gets sucked into the Looney Toons world with a high stakes game of basketball to decide their future. 

The 1996 Space Jam movie featuring NBA superstar Michael Jordon wasn’t a box office blockbuster. However, despite its flaws, it’s still considered a 1990s cult classic. 25 years later, we have a sequel featuring LeBron James, who is largely debated as Michael’s rival in the sport and yet another Space Jam movie.

LeBron needs the help of Bugs Bunny to win a basketball game against the superpowered ‘goons’ to rescue his son Dom from the evil clutches of Al-G (Don Cheadle). As it turns out, our beloved Looney Tunes characters are spread out in the Warner Bros Serververse. Granny and Speedy are hanging out in “The Matrix”, Yosemite Sam is playing the piano in “Casablanca”, Daffy Duck is somehow causing troubles for the Justice League and Lola Bunny has passed the test to be an Amazon. 

The movie essentially took the ‘looney’ out of “Loney Toons” and spent a majority of its time exploring the extended Warner Bros Universe. LeBron James, despite being an NBA superstar provides a decent acting performance in the film which is superior to Michael Jordon’s Space Jam 25 years ago. 

While the original Space Jam film was largely based on Michael’s TV advertisements for Nike, The New Legacy is a 2 hour long commercial of properties owned by Warner Bros. While such kinds of movies aren’t new in the industry, they usually offer something other than mere advertisements. “The Lego Movie”, “Ralph Breaks the Internet” and “Ready Player One” are good examples of advertisements mixed with a decent story.   

Space Jam: A New Legacy is currently in theatres and available for streaming on HBO Max.

Final Verdict: 2 stars (out of 5)