‘Space Jam: A New Legacy’ Movie and Blu-ray Review

Posted on October 9, 2021 by The Ultimate Rabbit

The following review was written by Ultimate Rabbit correspondent Tony Farinella.

“Space Jam: A New Legacy” is a film which was doomed from the start for one major reason: certain people do not like LeBron James and have an agenda against him. Because they have these feelings, they were not going to like this film no matter what. Personally speaking, I have nothing but respect for James as an athlete and a human being. He has been a very charitable individual and someone who is very honest and giving. However, people have this obsession with comparing him to Michael Jordan and these films. The original “Space Jam” was released 25 years ago, and it’s not like it was a classic. Nostalgia wins over a lot of people as they pine over “the good old days.”

I have watched “Space Jam: A New Legacy” twice now, once on HBO Max and once on Blu-Ray. I enjoyed it on the first viewing, probably because I went into the film with such low expectations and allowed other people to get inside my head. I thought to myself, that was an enjoyable film for both young teens and older adults to watch together. After a second viewing, I must sadly admit it does not hold up very well as I see a lot of flaws. That being said, it’s not as bad as everyone makes it out to be with their ruthless bashing. It’s merely a well-intentioned misfire.

James plays himself, and he’s trying to be a good father to his son Dominic (Cedric Joe) by pushing him to be the best basketball player he can be, day in and day out. Dominic, however, is much more interested in video games, specifically developing them and trying to make basketball games more fun with style points and other cool features. In a flashback scene, we see how James was forced to throw away his Game Boy and focus on basketball, which is why he is this way toward his son. His fictionalized wife, Kamiyah James (Sonequa Martin-Green), is trying to get her husband to lighten up and take it easy on their son.

One day, James is dragged along into a meeting with Warner Brothers where they want to further his brand into other film and television avenues. James would rather focus on basketball and politely rejects their offer. This does not sit well with Al G. Rhythm (Don Cheadle) who believes James is just the right star to get in his Serververse called Warner 3000, which can put the basketball star into a number of Warner Brothers films and TV shows. The executives at the meeting are played by Sarah Silverman and Steven Yeun, and I wouldn’t have minded seeing more of them here. As a matter of fact, the best scenes in the film are the ones which take place in the real world and not in the “serververse.”

James is not afraid to have a laugh at his own expense, and this is part of the charm of this film. They talk about the fact he has been on three teams. He was great in 2015’s “Trainwreck.” He has charisma, and I could see a future in acting for him whenever he decides to retire. I’ve always found him incredibly likable. The heartfelt scenes with him work. However, when he’s recruiting the Looney Tunes or when he’s playing a game to win back his son from Al G. Rhythm, the film gets really bogged down.

Back to the plot for a moment; once James turns down the opportunity to work with Warner Brothers, Al G. Rhythm is none too happy and decides to brainwash Dominic into playing a game of basketball against his own father using his video game rules. I don’t think a children’s film should be this convoluted or long. Seriously, the film is almost two hours long.

Essentially, what you have here is three things in “Space Jam: A New Legacy:” First, you have James trying to get his team together to win his son back and get him back to the real world. The scenes with him trying to recruit the Looney Tunes are enjoyable to a point, but the filmmakers spent too much time on them. Second, you have the basketball game which features incredibly annoying and silly commentary from Ernie Johnson and Lil Rel Howery. This game is just ridiculous. Finally, the best scenes, as mentioned, are the ones where James gets to be a human being and not a basketball player spouting off cliches or a cartoon character. We needed more of this.

A lot of people were upset with all of the self-promotion Warner Brothers did for “Space Jam: A New Legacy” as far as showing off all of the properties they own such as Harry Potter and “Game of Thrones.” This, however, did not bother me, as if you have these things, why not show them off? I got a kick out of seeing Pennywise at the big basketball game. My issue is this film is too long, uninvolving and uninteresting. I felt they could have made an enjoyable, yet heartfelt, children’s film for the whole family to enjoy together as one. Instead, I can’t imagine kids understanding a lot of the technology terms, and it’s too foolish for parents to enjoy. It made money, so there was an audience for it out of curiosity I imagine. I was hoping for more use out of the many basketball stars featured here, but they are all quickly turned into video game characters. Everyone meant well here, but they tried to do too much when a simple and shorter approach would have been best.

* * out of * * * *

Blu-Ray Info: “Space Jam: A New Legacy” is released on a two-disc Blu-ray Combo Pack from Warner Brothers Home Entertainment. It also comes with a digital copy of the film as well. It has a running time of 115 minutes and is rated PG for some cartoon violence and some language.

Video and Audio Info: It is released on 1080p High Definition with the audio coming in on Dolby Atmos-TrueHD: English, Dolby Digital: English Descriptive Audio, English, French, and Spanish. Subtitles are in English, French and Spanish as well.

Special Features:

First Quarter: Game On

Second Quarter: Teamwork

Third Quarter: Out of This World

Fourth Quarter: The Looniest

Deleted Scenes

Should You Buy It?

I can’t recommend “Space Jam: A New Legacy” as a purchase. I can’t imagine it will get any better with multiple viewings. As mentioned in my review, I enjoyed it as nonsensical fun the first time around. On the second viewing, I saw a lot of holes in the film. The special features are pretty lacking as well. The film is very colorful and bright. I feel like they could have made a good film as LeBron James is a superstar and box-office draw. For as many haters as he has, he does move the needle, and a lot of people do care about him. He can also act! They just needed to give him a better script. He’s a smart guy, and I’m very surprised he didn’t notice a lot of these flaws when he read the screenplay. He has shown a knack for making good decisions with his business ventures, but he missed out with this one. I’d rent it at Redbox if you are curious about it. Just know this: It’s not nearly as bad as everyone says it is. It’s just run-of-the-mill and forgettable.

Get Out

Posted on March 16, 2017 by The Ultimate Rabbit

Get Out movie poster

You know the main characters of this movie are in trouble once they hit a deer. Of this, I speak from my own experience as my dad drove me to the airport one time and ran over a deer which walked into his traffic lane. It was not his fault as the deer came out of nowhere, and there wasn’t any time to hit the brakes to avoid an animal oblivious to the Volvo station wagon heading straight at him (or her). Nevertheless, a week later I got laid off from my job. Looking back, hitting the deer proved to be an omen of bad things to come, and losing my job was one of them.

I was reminded of this as I watched the opening minutes of “Get Out,” an insidiously clever horror movie with the occasional dose of humor thrown in. Chris Washington (Daniel Kaluuya) and Rose Armitage (Allison Williams) are driving up an empty stretch of road to meet her parents when they slam into a deer. There’s nothing they can do to help the animal, and the police officer who arrives at the scene asks for Chris’ license even though he wasn’t driving. Rose encourages the officer to let Chris be, and he eventually leaves the scene while advising her to fix her broken rearview mirror. But as the movie goes on, this turns out to be the least of their problems.

I should probably point out that Chris and Rose are an interracial couple, and Chris is concerned Rose’s parents have no idea her daughter is dating a black man. His nervousness is understandable, and it is elevated further when Rose’s parents, Dean (Bradley Whitford) and Missy Armitage (Catherine Keener) try to make him feel welcome by telling him they would have voted President Barack Obama for a third time if it were possible. Basically, the Armitages are well-meaning white folks who support the fight against racism, but they have yet to understand the damage, however unintentional, they are doing to African-Americans.

Things get even weirder when Chris meets two other black people who work for the Armitages, Georgina (Betty Gabriel) and Walter (Marcus Henderson). Both act very strangely and in a manner which threatens to redefine passive-aggressive, and the way they stare at Chris is unnerving as they look like snakes ready to strike at their pray without much notice. It doesn’t take long for Chris to realize something is terribly wrong, but his attempts to escape the Armitage household are not exactly successful.

There is a lot of racial tension burning right underneath the surface in “Get Out,” and this is on purpose. The movie plays on the stereotypes whites have of blacks and vice-versa. Everyone is trying to be polite, but you can sense what’s really going on by looking into the eyes of each character as they project darker intentions or sheer terror, and sometimes both. We are left in suspense as we constantly wonder what the Armitages truly have in store for the helpless Chris, and when their intentions are revealed, it makes a scary, and an oddly amusing, amount of sense.

“Get Out” marks the directorial debut of Jordan Peele, one-half of the famous comedy duo “Key & Peele,” who also wrote the screenplay. It’s a very strong debut as he takes satirical elements and places them into a story which ratchets up the intensity throughout and keeps it up to the end. But Peele doesn’t just give us a flat-out satire as he never set out to play everything just for laughs. He digs deep and touches at our own preconceptions of race in America and plays around with the unintentional ways we reveal ourselves to be more prejudice than we ever realized.

Daniel Kaluuya, whom you might remember from “Sicario” and “Kick-Ass 2,” is excellent as Chris, a young man caught up in a situation we hope he fully comprehends before it is too late. He also has good chemistry with Allison Williams to where you can’t doubt they are believable as a couple. “Get Out” also has the benefit of having two terrific actors playing Rose’s parents, Bradley Whitford and Catherine Keener. Both have a warm presence here which eventually turns into something more sinister before you even know it.

I especially have to single out Keener as she remains one of the most underrated actors working today, and the scene where she hypnotizes Chris is a huge reminder of that inescapable fact. She doesn’t have to do too much to get our attention, and as Missy, she seduces us to a place we didn’t plan on going to, and it’s a place where we fear we will never rise up from.

There’s also a terrific scene-stealing performance from Lil Rel Howery as Chris’ best friend, Rod Williams, a TSA agent who has seen it all. In any other movie, Rod would be the one to overact in the most annoying way possible, but Howery turns the character into a welcome form of comic-relief the movie needs to ease the at times unbearable tension, and he is hilarious.

In many ways, “Get Out” is a clever riff on movies of the past like “The Stepford Wives” which dealt with the unusual behavior of female residents in a little Connecticut town, and Peel takes risks with the material you wish other filmmakers would take on a more regular basis. What results is a motion picture which is not perfect, but still a very good one which will stay with and unsettle you in the way a good horror movie should. It also plays with the ways white people try to show how non-racist they are and yet fall into an inescapable pit of hypocrisy before they even know it.

And for the record, I’m a white guy and I would definitely have voted for Barrack Obama for a third term as President. Think what you will of that statement. I’m just going to leave it here.

*** * * ½ out of * * * ***