Hey guys. So I've been doing a lot more movie viewing this year than I have last year. With the world kind of bringing some slight normalcy means more movies to watch. Granted the rising cases again makes for a more complicated future for movie theaters, I at least got some viewing experiences in. Let's get started with another round of brief movie reviews. What can I say? This is more time saving.
Luca
So this grade might be a tad harsher than I initially intended. My nephew loves this movie and while we were on vacation. we watched this movie every single day. Hell the first day, we watched this twice. This movie is not intended for repeat viewings, first criticism out of the way.
Before that, I honestly didn't mind it. I thought it was a cute movie about two kids who became best friends over the summer in 1960's Italy and wanted to win a vespa so they can travel the world together. Nothing wrong with that. Hell there is even some implied LGBTQ subtext if you really looked at it from additional perspectives. And I wouldn't have minded it if they really decided to take a chance and break down some more barriers. Because their friendship really had a lot of depth and layers to it. But of course its Disney and Disney really is not ready to be that risky yet.
As for the movie itself, it is gorgeously animated. Per usual for Pixar, but so much of this movie is so photorealistic at times that it just continues to impress me how much better Pixar is at this in comparison to other studios out there. This is like the third movie in a row now where I'm highlighting how beautiful their animation is. They're just that good at it. I also really liked the voice acting. Especially by our two leads here voiced by Jacob Tremblay and Jack Dylan Grazer. They are just so good and so committed to their parts and even by voice acting standards, there is just so much depth to their voices that can add so much depth into their characters.
But the more I watched this movie, the more paper thin this story is. This is what feels like the eighth Disney movie in the last ten years or so to be about inclusion and racism. And yeah, it reflects the times so spot on no matter how many times they do this, but at the very least, TRY SOMETHING DIFFERENT WITH THIS. They can be doing so much better with this type of story and I know it because they have. I mean I'm not asking for another Zootopia or Soul, but for fucks sake, raise the stakes. Because this story is as limp as they come. I also hate how we don't get any sort of explanation as to how this universe works. Because the only thing I get from this is that water makes the sea monsters revert away from their human forms. Otherwise, nothing else. We just have to accept that they can turn into humans. A little bit of backstory would be nice in that regard.
And I'll just be blunt, this is probably the worst Pixar antagonist ever. Like I can't picture a more uninteresting character with the most basic of motivations for what he does. He's not funny and his plan is just super basic. He's just a bully by the most basic sense and he should be picked on for being a fully grown man who picks on little kids. Just awful and stupid by every sense of the imagination.
If I only saw this once, I would have given it a light B, but the more I saw this over my previous vacation, the more its flaws just stuck out for me and honestly, this is bottom-tier Pixar. Debatable if this is better than Onward to be honest.
Final Grade: C
In The Heights
So remember how I said I was going to fully review by first movie I saw back in theaters? Well better late than never I assume. I told myself that Lin-Manuel Miranda's co-created theatrical musical was going to be my first movie I go back to theaters to go see. And what high praise that was because this movie...underperformed. Yes even in this day and age, where A LOT of movies are underperforming at the box office due to the coronavirus pandemic; this is probably one of the biggest financial busts of this era. Even though it got huge streaming numbers from HBO Max, per usual for the platform since they ushered us in to this new normal for studio streaming theater releases; its box office has been super lackluster. I'm kind of surprised by this since Lin-Manuel has become such a household name due to Hamilton, but I know that musicals are one of the tougher subgenres to sell when it comes to getting people to pay for movies.
Which is a damn shame because this is honestly one of the best musicals we've gotten in quite some time. I loved this movie. Not only because I'm a sucker for musicals, but because this story is quite excellent. As someone who has dated a "dreamer", I absolutely understand the story that is being told and what sort of prejudices they have to overcome. It is a very serious topic to make a full-length film about, but it is so much more than that. It's about chasing dreams, loving your roots (the main character's goal is to go back to where he came since he adored the Dominican Republic), and finding true love. And I had an absolute blast the entire time watching this. The musical numbers are great, the acting is phenomenal; Olga Merdez as Abuela Claudia deserves a damn Oscar after her musical number had me in tears. I had such a good time watching this. The movie's two hour plus runtime was even lost on me because I just had the biggest goofy smile on my face watching this and singing along to the songs under my mask.
If I had one minor complaint that prevents this from receiving my rare "A+" grade, and this is a super minor nitpick, but this is a Lin-Manuel Miranda movie. Don't get me wrong, as stated previously, I love Lin-Manuel. Its his style of musical that I really wish would take some more risks. Granted I've never seen the original play for "In The Heights" and I've been told that his rap-singing and fast-talking style of composing is exactly the same as it was in "Hamilton". If so, that's great; good on him. He still made a great movie. But part of me just stopped and thought to myself that so much of this reminded me of "Hamilton". And a lot of it was due to the songs being incredibly similar at times when it came to composition. Hell there was even a few "Hamilton" easter eggs in the movie itself. Which yes I did laugh at. But I really hope that the next Lin-Manuel adaptation we get does try to distance itself from the shadow of "Hamilton". Because while that will always be known as Miranda's magnum opus and what made him into the superstar that he is today, I want him to not constantly rely on what made "Hamilton" work for every one of his future projects.
But if that's the only nitpick I truly had with this, then expect me to talk about this more when the end of the year rolls around. I can't wait to watch this again!
Final Grade: A
Black Widow
Now this was a movie that probably should have gotten a full-length treatment. After all, its a Marvel Cinematic Universe film. This is the major film franchise that has me following so many of its moves at the moment. They've got me hooked on every single project, sub-project, etc. I've been a fan of what they are doing for the past thirteen years and I've got faith that they're going to be around for quite some time, no matter how many misses they take.
Which let's be honest, this was not one of their better films. Honestly, I would say that this is Bottom 10 MCU, which does not make this a bad movie. I still enjoyed plenty of it and am still going to recommend it when its all said and done. I'm glad that we FINALLY got this movie after years of waiting for it because Black Widow had too much depth for a character to not explore her story any further. I'm satisfied with what we got when it came to her story and learning more about her past and her history with her Soviet espionage history. Hands down, the highlight of this movie being Florence Pugh as Yelena Belova. This is a character I can just tell the MCU had future plans for the moment I saw her because she stole one too many scenes for her to be just a one-off character. And the interactions between Natasha and her spy family were just so good and full of great conversations and of course, clever Marvel humor.
Despite all the good though, I have to admit. This story could have been better written. There were times I was watching this thinking to myself, this feels thrown together out of fan demand and not a natural Marvel story. And with this taking place between Captain America: Civil War and the events of Infinity War/Endgame, the stakes were just not there. I hate to be that blunt but not once did I feel any real stakes with the events that were taking place and most of the action sequences if we are being honest. And of course, let's talk about that uneventful twist. Which does get into spoiler territory, but let's just say the reveal of whom The Taskmaster really is is not that surprising since Nat keeps bringing up this one past assignment over and over again. Oh and Dreykov is honestly one of the worst MCU villains. Period. His plan is utterly ridiculous and despite Ray Winstone giving it his best, I honestly forgot the character's name until I googled it thirty seconds ago while writing this. Nobody is going to remember this guy after the next few MCU movies. Mark my words.
And let's talk about that MCU comedy. I normally don't mind it. I know people are getting tired of it and its starting to become a trope in all these films that we get this one comedy character. I honestly think David Harbour does a good job in this role with what he's given. But let's just say that there is this one joke at around the midpoint of the movie. It is quite possibly one of the worst lines in a MCU movie. Ever. And this joke lingers for like a whole minute. They clearly are banking on a lot of people to laugh at this when every person I've talked to has hated this as much as I do.
Despite all my complaints, I don't think Black Widow is a bad movie. Not at all. But in terms of trying to lead us into the next phase of MCU movies, I was not impressed.
Final Grade: C
Old
I genuinely do not know how to approach this movie. But let me just say, if you guys thought that the last five years or so has been a return to form for M. Night Shyamalan when it came to quality; this movie is a return to form for M. Night Shyamalan making hilariously atrocious movies.
For everyone who missed Shyamalan making comedically bad masterpieces like Lady in the Water or The Happening, my god you need to check this out. Because just like with those movies, all of this movie's problems fall right down to Shyamalan's directing and writing. Maybe like ONE actor puts on a good performance in this movie. Everybody else's acting is just so many ranges from way too serious or way too wooden or incredibly unhuman like. The directing is all over the place with this as Shyamalan does all his usual tricks to absolutely no surprises. And the writing in this. My god the writing in this. I...I just can't even begin to explain every stupid decision made in this script without going into spoiler territory. So in a weird way, this is kind of a recommendation.
But at the same time, I can't give this a good grade because so many elements in this movie are just so bad. Even if it brought a joy to my face in terms of laughing my ass off.
Final Grade: D
And those were my brief reviews for this past month. More in the works as well as a new music project that I'm hoping to get off the ground. Until next time, take care.
WARNING: This review does
contain spoilers. So if you have any
desire to see Space Jam: A New Legacy, this review does go over plenty of
content that happens in this. Please
keep that in mind if you choose to go further.
Me: Where to even start with
this movie. You all saw the title for
this post. My mind cannot even begin to
comprehend that we got a second Space Jam movie twenty-five years later. Am I hallucinating? How did this happen? Why did this happen? How are they going to remake the essential
90s movie in the year 2021?
Well for starters, I should
probably let you all know that I absolutely love the original Space Jam.Yes, you heard that right.I love what is often considered one of the
worst family films of that decade.I
know why so many people hate it.Michael
Jordan can’t act.The plot was
absolutely ridiculous, even for campy standards.The fact that this whole idea was inspired by
a commercial.So many problems.All of them fair.But I don’t care.I love this movie to death.So I’m admittedly not the best judge of
character when it comes to tackling one of the biggest movies of the summer; as
unnecessary as it is.Thus I brought on
some help.He’s one of my e-friends of
many years, who is fairly knowledgeable when it comes to the animation
industry.Ladies and gents, Steel.
Steel: As the surprise
collaborator for this review, I should introduce myself a bit first thing. I’ve
been in the freelance reviewing game for a while, and my interests are mostly
focused on the animation medium…although it has been a long while since I’ve
done a review on the topic until this very point, and the new Space Jam movie
is a good reason for me to rebound as it’s been one of the most hyped up movies
of this current year, while it has also given me the opportunity to make it a
collab with Bobby. I have already familiarized myself with the first film prior
to this collaboration. I was merely an infant when the first Space Jam was
released to theaters, so my exposure to it came at a later time. I’d say that
Space Jam was perfectly…okay. In retrospect, Space Jam was an ambitious concept
for a film, to crossover a big-name NBA star with a cast of timeless and
well-known animated characters, and it opened up the doors for more crossover
potential. It was a hit in the box office for Warner Bros., and it renewed
interested in the Looney Tunes franchise, so this can be seen as a turning
point for the company, as the film allowed for us to see what they were capable
of on a large scale, and it gave them the chance to be able to compete with
Disney’s Renaissance-era animated films…and then Quest for Camelot happened,
but that’s a different story.
Anyways, while the original Space Jam boasted an interesting
premise and impressive visuals, the plot has the gaudiness that you would
expect from the typical family film: A group of bugs (the Nerdlucks) are
ordered to abduct the Looney Tunes for new attractions on their planet only to
then be challenged to a basketball game by the Tunes. Learning that the best
talents in basketball come from the NBA, the bugs take advantage of this and
take away the talent from the NBA players to become the Monstars. Oh yeah, and
then Michael Jordan meets the Looney Tunes and helps them with their match
after Bugs pulls him down a hole during a golf game. It’s a silly plot, but
it’s not the least to expect from a movie starring the Looney Tunes. While the
writing for these characters isn’t very sharp, on the other hand...they’re the
Looney Tunes. Of course they’re still going to steal the show.
The general consensus of the first film seems to be that while
it’s seen as a shameless cash grab and it doesn’t live up to the standards of the
classic Looney Tunes cartoons, it’s still an enjoyable film regardless due to
its relentless charm. It’s a guilty pleasure film for most of us and it’s got
something that brings us all together. If you were a casual sports fan and you
weren’t there for the Looney Tunes, you were there for Michael Jordan and for
the cameos of other NBA stars during the film’s time period. It also gave us
Lola Bunny, who was created to be a love interest for Bugs, and while her
character has been despised for lacking any particular traits that you’d expect
from a Looney Tunes character and feeling nothing more than a sex symbol, she
still managed to have a fanbase since she at least had some personality beyond
that. She’s athletic. She’s strong. She’s not like the other girls. Due to the
character’s popularity, Lola continued to appear in more pieces of Looney Tunes
media, including The Looney Tunes Show, whereas most viewers tend to agree has
the best portrayal of the character because we get to see Lola’s zany side, and
it worked.
Alright, enough talk about the original Space Jam. The main
attraction here is the newer film. So, what did I think of it? For starters,
it’s a very complex film to discuss. The best way that I can describe it in one
sentence is that it’s simply a bigger budget version of the first Space Jam
movie. As I progress with my analysis, I guarantee that you’ll notice that it
lingers on familiarity, following a specific formula. Don’t get the wrong idea
though. There are clear differences as well. For starters, LeBron James is the
main NBA star of this installment, and some of the themes that this film
tackles besides teamwork is family and of course, the shortcomings of
artificial intelligence. And despite its setbacks, this new Space Jam film
still manages to be enjoyable. The point may already be clear as to why I don’t
despise A New Legacy like most critics do, but first, let’s talk about the plot.
Me: Yes, the plot. The plot is admittedly one of the things I admit
is a major problem with this movie. It
is almost a little on the nose how much of this plot is rehashed from the
original Space Jam. Right down to
basically starting off the movie almost similarly. Watching a younger version of our NBA
superstars that put the plot into motion.
The original Space Jam had a young MJ playing basketball talking about
his future with his father which led to MJ’s personal self-journey. This one has a young LeBron playing
admittedly a clever nostalgia bomb in “Bugs Bunny’s Crazy Castle”, but his
addiction to technology led to his father questioning his dedication to
basketball. Thus leading to LeBron
becoming a stick in the mud who forgot how to have fun in the movie. This is rehashing that I really could have
done without. And it is not the only
time this movie rehashes the original. There
are god knows how many callbacks to how this plot has been done for. Now I didn’t mind it the first time because
it was actually clever how the joke was utilized. But the second, third, fourth, fifth….yeah
the joke starts to lose its luster the more the point gets beaten down that
this is indeed a sequel to a movie that probably didn’t need one.
And if rehashing the original
Space Jam isn’t enough, that’s not even the biggest plot problem this movie
has. Yes, most of you already know about
this movie’s biggest criticism just from the movie trailer. Let’s talk about the absolutely shameless
plugs of Warner-Media’s vast library of intellectual properties. If I already didn’t have a subscription to
HBO Max, this movie would have solely existed to get sceptics to sign-up for
HBO Max. For starters, the movie’s
villain is literally called Al-G Rhythm (har har). And he’s mad at King James for turning down
his incredibly stupid idea of inserting LeBron into other Warner IPs; so he
wants to get back at him by turning his own son Dom against him and settle
their internal conflict in a video game stylized version of basketball. And…..I
can’t even begin to describe how ridiculous this is. The ball is back in Steel’s court.
Steel: There are several upon
several nods, Easter eggs, and straight-up insertions of Warner-Media’s
intellectual properties. First things first, you have LeBron and Bugs
travelling to the DC animated universe to find Daffy and Porky, then you have
them briefly travelling to the worlds of Mad Max, Austin Powers, Game of
Thrones, Casablanca, and so forth. You even got Rick & Morty making a
cameo. Whether you see this as Warner Bros.
self-promoting their HBO Max streaming service and the variety it offers, or if
you see this as them flexing their power as a multimedia company, this film is
noted for how it uses its product placement to an excruciating degree. Even
I’ll admit it that it holds me back a lot from viewing the second movie as a
big improvement over the first, because while the original was nothing more
than a crossover between the worlds of NBA and The Looney Tunes, the second
film tries to cram so much more into it to the point where it’s hard for me to
identify this film with LeBron and The Looney Tunes alone.
After addressing one of the main issues with the second film, I
should reaffirm that it doesn’t mean that it prevents me from finding enjoyment
in it. As commercialized as it may be, let’s not forget that the original Space
Jam was a victim to this from when it was first conceptualized. I could’ve
mentioned this during my brief summation of the first film, but I think this is
a good time to discuss a part of its history. The first collaboration between
NBA and Warner Bros. was through a successful Super Bowl ad campaign for the
Nike shoe brand, which starred Bugs Bunny and Michael Jordan together. This
partnership was what led to the idea of turning it into a full-fledged film,
and while it wasn’t accepted right away, it still managed to get the greenlight
when an executive for Warner Bros. saw marketing potential for it, which would
turn out to be true in the long run, and that’s why I thought Space Jam was a
good opportunity for Warner Bros. to showcase its capabilities in which they
failed to do for Scoob! and the live-action/CGI Tom & Jerry movie. So while
it is excessive and tedious with its branding, Space Jam: A New Legacy is at
least an impressive boast and I can’t help but appreciate that the company had
the balls to go as far as they did with their self-promotion.
Me: Yeah, I too don’t mind all
the self-promoting by the Warners. Yes
there are a lot of groan-worthy moments admist all the self-loving
callbacks. I did not need to see Elmer
Fudd and Sylvester in Austin Powers. I
especially did not need to see Granny and Speedy in the Matrix; one of the worst
scenes in the entire movie. But seeing
Daffy and Porky interact in the DCU?
Yeah that was actually hilarious.
Right down to making LeBron the Robin to Bugs’s Batman. As an avid basketball fan, that clever
in-joke had me in stitches. And seeing
Taz interact with Rick and Morty? That
actually makes more sense than people give it credit for. And unlike in other Warner self-loving
projects like Also watching the entire Warner Bros IP library as the basketball
viewing audience brings a crap ton of unintentional comedy. Some of my personal highpoints that had me
laughing were Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Mr. Freeze doing some Arnold spasms, Joaquin’s
Joker doing his stupid dance, and new Pennywise pointing and laughing every
couple minutes.
And I’ll give them credit that
this movie does a much better job at integrating all these properties together
unlike say Ready Player One. Because
those are just avatars of other people that don’t act like their natural
characters. Even if all these IPs are
just green-screened in (literally), at least they are staying true to what
their identities are. Which btw, the CGI
in this is fantastic. Especially on the
Looney Tunes, who actually look really good computer animated for the thirty
minutes or so they are in that style.
The rest of the time they are hand-drawn, which I’m so happy that this
movie is like 1/3 hand-drawn animation.
It’s really good 2-D.
Steel: That brings me to my
next point, so let’s focus on a few of the main positives that I have with this
new installment: the animation and the visuals. It’s a big-budget film, so it
is expected. The editing, the effects, and the graphic designs in this film are
all stunning to look at. The 2D animation is really stellar too, as are the CG
designs for the Looney Tunes. In fact, this film has quite a lot of visual
appeal to show. On the other hand, it has that style over substance kind of
vibe, but the film manages to keep itself focused on the storyline. Is the
story writing any good though? Well…let’s go over the villain for a moment,
Al-G Rhythm. His main motivation throughout most of the film is to get all the
attention that he wants, and he goes to the extreme of abducting viewers of the
basketball game in the real world and intends to trap them inside the server if
his team wins, and this mainly because of LeBron rejecting his offer. I bring
attention to this because I feel like there’s something ironic in a sense about
how the film forms a villain based on the algorithm when it feels like the film
was structured by an algorithmic system. In other words, Warner Bros. doesn’t
shy away from reinforcing certain family film trends to give their new Space Jam
film all the attention it could receive.
The plot of this film is your typical family film fluff. Father
and son with conflicting interests try to connect with one another. They are
roped in the villain’s plot that puts their lives on the line. The main
protagonist goes on some sort of road trip as part of his task in trying to win
back his son and escape from the world the villain’s trapped them in. The
protagonist would then learn a few things about himself and realize his
mistake. The film contains your typical “follow your dreams” and “be yourself”
message and we even have a Minion-type character in the form of Pete
because…why not? This type of character sells. When the product placement is
not the big issue with the film, it’s the feeble story. When the movie still
has its thrills, I wouldn’t call the plot lackluster per se, but I still
believe the writing could’ve been better. One thing I feel like they’ve
could’ve established more was with the concept of Al-G Rhythm making Dom turn
against his father LeBron and making him pose as a threat in the match, and the
equal amount of focus that was put on the other teammates on Al-G’s team (that
equally serve as animated cameos of other specific NBA players) overshadows it.
In addition, the writing is not only guilty of recycling elements
from any other particular film. There are moments where it recycles elements
from the original Space Jam. Like addressed before, both films start off with
a flashback of the young NBA star. Then there’s the basketball game between
LeBron & The Tune Squad and The Goon Squad, which feels too structured like
the original’s match between Jordan & The Tune Squad and The Monstars.
First third of the match, The Tune Squad is off to a bad start due to the
opposing team being overpowered. In the middle of the game, the Tune Squad
realizes they can outmatch the other team by simply doing what they do best.
Last third of the match builds up to the climax anticipating the NBA star and
his team securing a win within the last few minutes. Sometime in-between the
game, we are even greeted with a celebrity appearance. The first film has one
of the golfing buddies, Bill Murray, (mistaken for Dan Aykroyd) showing up in
the Looney Tunes world with little to no explanation to fill in a spot for
Jordan’s team. Here, we get a cameo, not from Michael Jeffrey Jordan, but from
Michael B. Jordan, who, after being summoned by Sylvester, is mistaken for the
similarly-named basketball player and wishes LeBron and The Tune Squad the best
of luck. Despite these instances of derivativeness, the second film does do a
few things different. For the last third of the match, we have Dom transferring
to LeBron’s team after the latter talks with him about how he’s free to do what
he wants in life, while Al-G takes control of his entire team. Oh yeah, and
Bugs Bunny makes the ultimate sacrifice by performing the move that LeBron used
that caused the glitch in the game Dom was developing.
Me: Yeah as I stated earlier,
there are plenty of callbacks to the first Space Jam. And while I touched mostly upon the beginning
being more or less a repeat of the original, what Steel just recapped is indeed
correct. The third act climax basketball
game is absolutely the same structure.
Which I get that’s almost how all sports films end up being, but when
you so shamelessly rip yourself for a good portion of this movie; it bears
repeating. Did they really have so
little ideas for a twenty-five year old sequel?
I mean yes I still got plenty of laughs during the game as expected with
the involvement of the Looney Tunes. And
that cameo during halftime was so fucking predictable, but I still cracked up
because of the little moments. Like Head
Coach Daffy suggesting that they trade Sylvester for grabbing the wrong Michael
Jordan. Hell even the Nerdlucks archive
footage got a laugh out of me. There is
this layer of charm throughout the entire movie that really does keep this
movie from being so obnoxious with its self-referencing and self-loving Warner
Brothers plugs.
And what really helped as well
is there clearly is a layer of love for the Looney Tunes property. Not a single toon feels out of character and
even the slight modernization of them isn’t too grating. Well except for Granny saying youthful colloquialisms
and…sigh…The Notorious P.I.G. But at the
very least, they get Daffy right. And
Foghorn Leghorn. And Tweety and
Sylvester. And my personal favorites the
Road Runner and Willy E. Coyote. And
they gave more depth to Lola Bunny after so many years of her being a topic for
overt sexualizing. Granted, she’s
nowhere near as interesting as she was in say The Looney Tunes Show about ten
years ago; but at least we don’t give in to more furry bait. And most especially, they got Bugs
right. It made sense for him to be the
last character left standing when we first returned to Tune World because Bugs
is loyal to the Looney Tune branding. He’s
the icon for the property for a reason.
As for his sacrifice at the end?
It stays true to his character for him to overdramatize what happened
and then for him to pop up at the very end saying that he can’t die because he’s
a toon. It’s who Bugs is.
Steel:The
live-action cast does a good job carrying the film as well. As weak as I found
the villain to be, I still enjoyed Don Cheadle’s performance as Al-G Rhythm.
LeBron does a good job in acting out as a fictionalized version of himself and
manages to carry just about the same weight that Michael Jordan had in the
original Space Jam.
Me: So this is probably the
only disagreement Steel and I had with our viewing experiences. I absolutely did not agree about the acting
of this movie. The only actor who I
thought did an actual good job in this was Cedric Joe as LeBron’s fictionalized
son, Dom. He is a promising young child
actor who I think could get some more roles down the line. Otherwise, the acting in this is all
incredibly awkward. And hilariously
entertaining levels of awkward at that.
Don Cheadle.This is a man who has obtained so many acting
awards throughout his professional career and when it is all said and done,
will go down as one of the most underrated actors of our time.I mean this guy just got an Emmy award for
this year when he showed up in The Falcon and The Winter Soldier for two
minutes, maybe less.He’s that talented…what
the fuck was he doing in this?He was
hamming it up to such extremes that he was almost becoming Jim
Carrey-esque.And he seemed so awkward
doing all this that I couldn’t help but laugh so much at him.
As for LeBron James, I know
this man can act.I saw him in his supporting
role in 2015’s Trainwreck.He proved he
has good comedic timing and can handle serious moments as well.What even is this performance?He’s super serious throughout so much of this
movie and whenever he does go for comedy, he’s so cringe and offbeat.Let me put it to you this way.One of the first couple scenes in this movie
has him being a hardass to his son about his questionable commitment to
basketball, when suddenly his wife comes over and tells LeBron and his sons
that they are having spaghetti and meatballs for dinner.LeBron responds in such a corny fashion “Oh
boy!My favorite!”And I laughed super hard at that.
That’s most of this movie in a
nutshell. The awkward pacing and
unintentional comedy that is this style of filmmaking. I can’t even begin to describe to you guys
how many bad decisions this movie makes with its writing, acting, and
directing; but I still found myself laughing at what I’m supposed to laugh at
and what I wasn’t supposed to laugh at.
I had to pause a few times because I just had to catch my breath from so
much laughing.
Steel: The quality of Space
Jam: A New Legacy very much depends on the person. For some, the negatives tend
to outweigh the positives while for others, it’s vice versa. There’s a good
balance between the positives and negatives that I have towards the film, and
I‘d say that, by a margin, the movie’s positive assets outbalances its faults
due to the thrills that it offers and as well as due to the relentless charm. I
usually rate things with an ‘out of 10’ system. Since Bobby has a grading
system, I’ll abide to it and give Space Jam: A New Legacy a light C- grade.
It’s too soon for me to gauge on whether or not it means that I liked this
second film better than the original Space Jam, but I’ll at least say that the
quality has stayed consistent after all those 25 years.
Me: Do I like this better than
the original Space Jam? Absolutely
not. Once again, further proving that Michael
Jordan is the unquestionable G.O.A.T.
Sure LeBron may be the better actor, but Michael Jordan had the better
Space Jam as well. But that doesn’t mean
LeBron doesn’t come close. This movie
was a charming surprise. I don’t think
this movie will be everyone’s cup of tea.
This movie’s problems are glaring just like the original Space Jam and I
can absolutely see so many people bothered by the hour and a half long indirect
advertisement for HBO Max. But as
someone who does tend to enjoy mindless fluff and especially the Looney Tunes,
I got to admit that I had an incredibly good time with this one. Would I recommend this? Depends on how much of a tolerance you have
for everything listed above. My final
grade is a B.
Steel: This ends my review of
the film along with Bobby, and it has been a pleasure analyzing it with him.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to eat a bowl of Space Jam-brand cereal in my
Space Jam-brand athletic wear, before then watching more Warner-Media shows and
films on HBO Max. After I’ve taken care of that, I’m going to invest in
Bigchunguscoin so that I can use the currency to pay for a ticket to Six Flags,
as I plan to spend my time there consuming my money on some more Warner-Media’s
products.
Me: And I can’t tell Steel to otherwise.BLAME THIS MOVIE!
