3) Space Jam (1996)
What You Thought As A Kid:
Oh my God: all my favourite cartoon characters have somehow found themselves transported into the real world? And Michael Jordan – who I’m actually only vaguely familiar with being just ten-years-old – is going on an adventure with them? Wow, this is amazing. The vast array of colours, especially, are blowing my mind. It’s all very silly, isn’t it? Which is what I love. ‘Cause I’m a kid. Woo!
What’s Really Going On:
You can’t help but think about the initial pitch for Space Jam: “All right, so, it’s all your favourite Looney Tunes characters… Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, you know… and, then, there’s basketball as well… and… and Michael Jordan plays the main character, who is also Michael Jordan. Oh, and space. There’s space.” On another planet but Earth, that might’ve been the greatest pitch ever slammed-dunked into the other planetary version of Hollywood’s basket, but here in the real world, it’s just as bad as the movie it came to produce.
The obvious draws to something like Space Jam are (for a child), of course, the colorful characters and the fact that they’re in the real world and interacting with human beings like it’s the most natural thing to have ever occurred. But said animation is cheap-looking and unconvincing, there are barely any jokes in which you might actually laugh, and there’s been no attempt made to make this an appealing ride for audiences of all ages. Not that I go for that sort of thing. I’m just saying that, for a parent, Space Jam has got to be some kind of hell: 90 minutes of… stuff.
The plot is thin. It doesn’t really even make sense, so I won’t regurgitate it here. Just imagine the sort of plot that would bring Michael Jordan, Bugs Bunny and some aliens together and you’ll probably get something close. Then there’s an added layer to the film which in the way it kind of… knows... that it’s just an advertisement for merchandising. I mean to say that Space Jam is genuinely cynical about its own reasons for existing, spewing comments in a way that’d make a parent say, “What the f**k? Don’t tell me this stuff… I don’t wanna know I’m controlled by iconic characters!”
It’s well-known that Space Jam was made quickly for cash-in purposes and that’s extremely obvious, but it’s truly the blandest slice of animation I’ve ever seen as a result. There’s absolutely nothing going on here that might inspire somebody to have a relatively worthwhile thought afterwards. I mean, I guess it could convince a child to play basketball, but a child would still probably, like, prefer to watch Space Jam. And that’s the point I’m making: Space Jam sucks, okay?
Redeeming Factors: Michael Jordan isn’t actually too bad. For a motion picture based around his actual celebrity, the man comes across as humble. Which is impressive.
Rotten Tomatoes: 35%