Review: Space Jam

Directed by: Joe Pytka

Written by: Leo Benvenuti, Steve Rudnick, Timothy Harris, Herschel Weingrod

Starring: Michael Jordan, Billy West, Wayne Knight, Theresa Randle, Danny DeVito

Rating: [1.5/5]

Nothing quite carries more strength and power than nostalgia. Superman’s strength would quake compared to the power this has carried, which allows us to turn the clock back into childhood at its best and inhibit us from appropriately growing up at its worst. In occasions like Space Jam with the major cultural impact convincing an entire generation of its supposed quality, there comes the time to acknowledge reality. The reality of this actually being a terrible movie. 

With a struggling attraction to keep running, Mr. Swackhammer (Danny DeVito) devises a plan to have the Looney Tunes characters serve as the attraction. After their refusal, a wager in the form of a basketball game gets made leaving the Looney Tunes character desperate to reach out and gain assistance from Michael Jordan. 

Quite the phenomenon when looking with the eyes of a 1996 audience, this feature reached the masses by combining the incredibly popular Looney Tunes characters with the most famous athlete in the world, Michael Jordan. The recipe for something quite memorable for audiences to take in, but ultimately did not guarantee quality. As someone who watched this feature as a child and professed my love for it many times throughout the years, now taking the opportunity to watch it with a fully formed brain confirms what many have cynically said where this film truly wreaks and constantly contradicts itself in unintentionally funny ways. 

Operating in both the real and cartoon world presented an intriguing blend of live-action and animation in moments that certainly does not hold but at the time most likely blew the minds of everyone who watched it back in the day. The feature gets given an inch and then goes on and takes a mile in the way it stretches the limitations of animation at the time to make some insane atrocities for the eye. One scene of poor Wayne Knight demonstrates they perhaps overshot what they could feasibly craft. This aligns with the idea Bugs Bunny (Billy West) tried to teach Michael Jordan in embracing the cartoon physics of the world but it does not deliver the desired effect it sought to create. You can respect the ambition while honestly stating it most certainly does not work. 

With basketball serving as an integral part of the story, this feature not only brought in the most famous Basketball player in the world and in all of history in Michael Jordan, they also enlisted the help of other greats of the 1990s. This includes Larry Bird, Charles Barkley, Muggsy Bogues, Shawn Bradley, Patrick Ewing, and Larry Johnson. Their inclusion brings more credence to this operating as a basketball movie but their lack of acting ability sure made it quite grating to watch. A sacrifice the film knowingly makes hoping the audience would get so sucked in by the star power of their inclusion to forget what they lack in the acting department. Unfortunately, this effect assuredly does not work when watching this film beyond the time when these basketball stars carried their biggest impact and all we have left is some shoddy lines of dialogue by athletes half-assing their delivery. Listen, as funny as Wayne Knight is, when he serves as the standout aspect of your film, perhaps some elements need some reconsideration. 

The only enjoyable moments this feature carries over remain with the Looney Tunes as they add their typical ridiculous comedy to this story. This shines the most in the moments they share together prior to the integration of the larger story and Micahel Jordan. They ultimately drive the entertainment of this feature seeing as everything else manages to fail in measuring up to even reaching a level of basic competence, unfortunately. 

Everyone carries nostalgia and can look back fondly on something they watched aplenty in childhood but can admit does not quite hold up. Some maintain a charm that allows one to overlook their glaring faults and still find enjoyment. Trust me, this site has plenty of examples in my personal movie-watching journey. However, Space Jam falls into the category of films where its lack of quality proves far too apparent and ultimately makes for an unwatchable mess for the majority of the feature.