Space Jam: A New Legacy (2021) Review 

When I was younger I used to watch the Looney Tunes and I loved and the original Space Jam is a guilty pleasure film for me so I had a tiny bit of excitement for the sequel New Legacy and I had the chance to watch it today and here is my review for it. The premise of the film sees Lebron James sucked into an artificial world where he must unite the Toon Squad to win a game of Basketball. 

Main Character

As mentioned above, Lebron James plays himself as the lead character and he seems like a pretty charismatic guy in real life but that is not the case here. He is so boring to watch here, and for the majority of the film he is just reacting to what is going on with the whole world. The film forces him to deliver some emotional scenes and he just can't do it and it really makes the film fall flat. 

Supporting Characters

Don Cheadle plays the bad guy in the film and he just looks like he is having a really fun time with the role, this is no great villain performance but he is possibly the most entertaining part of the film and that has to count for something. Onto the toons and they are pretty entertaining, the old classics are there by Buggs Bunny, Wile Coyote and Foghorn Leghorn and memories of my childhood came back. But they also get put into the background for Lebron, I never really got Zendaya voicing Lola Bunny and guys like Semmity Sam and Daffy Duck have little to do and the biggest negative is giving my favourite character Marvin Martian barely anything to do. I didn't really care for Lebron's onscreen son and Sonequa Martin-Green is really wasted as Lebron's wife. 

Story 

The story offers very little. The whole theme of fatherhood is let down by weak performances and a weak dramatic script. The first film had the looney tunes in the forefront but here they feel like afterthoughts, in favour for Warner Bros very clear poor marketing and they try to cram all these franchises that they own in order to try and convince you to watch them. This is despite the demographic of young kids will have no idea what half of these franchises even are. 

Script

The script does have a few chuckle worthy moments and although I complained about the obvious marketing ploy, a lot of the cameos were quite funny to me as a big film fan. But the drama really isn't there and a good chunk of the comedy feels like it should have been left in the prime days of the tunes. 

Style 

The animation for this film is pretty great, it looks exactly like it should for the majority, until it goes to more CGI instead of animation and it becomes a bit strange. Also this film felt really long, the last basketball game itself feels like an hour long and I shouldn't be feeling like that in a family friendly film with Looney Tunes characters. 

Overall

Overall, Space Jam: New Legacy is a bad film. It will have some people who grew up with The Looney Tunes and the original film but they will not like it and kids shouldn't be bought up watching this garbage of a film cause it has some nice visuals. 

Rating - 3/10