Space Jam (1996) - A Very Uneven and Kind of Sloppy Mess

As an animation fan, it's pretty much impossible for me to not like the Looney Tunes, their mix of ingenious writing, expertly done animation and the occasional clever bit of commentary, the Looney Tunes has earned its place as one of the most recognizable animated properties of all time, if not the most. So many of these cartoons hold up so well that they might as well have been made in the 1980s, or the 1990s, or the 2000s, we all grew up with the classics of Bugs, Daffy, Sylvester, Coyote and Road Runner, and more, to the point where we would never have guessed these cartoons probably predated our own parents. The Looney Tunes have remained pop-culture icons through highs and lows, and those lows could get deep. Since I've opened up my doors to live-action mixes like Roger Rabbit, I figured it would be fun to give this movie a review. I remember really loving Space Jam as a kid, I used to watch the VHS I had all the time, however, as with a lot of things about childhood, it's really not as good as you remember. Seriously, your childhood probably sucked more than you're willing to admit, but I digress, let's talk about Space Jam.

After retiring from Basketball, no I will not mention everything around that event, Michael Jordon takes up Baseball, only to literally get roped into playing a basketball game with the Looney Tunes against aliens from Moron Mountain who have stolen the basketball talent from NBA icons and want to enslave the Looney Tunes characters in their amusement park. On the one hand, I get it, this is a ridiculous enough plot to warrant a ridiculously cartoony cast, and it isn't like Looney Tunes didn't do spoofs before. It's just that those spoofs were of movie genres, classic stories, operas and musicals. Looney Tunes never really did spoofs or commentaries on sports and sporting communities, not like Disney did. However, this movie literally began as an advertising campaign with Bugs Bunny and Michael Jordan. On top of that, a lot of this plot is given to the rest of the NBA stars as they deal with their stolen talent, and Wayne Knight trying to pull Michael out of the Looney Tunes world, I like Wayne Knight fine, but these segments aren't really that funny.

The sad thing about this movie is, there are some decently written bits here, one of the basketball players sits in Church praying to God and then says he'll never date Madonna again, or Bugs and Daffy talking about how they weren't getting paid for any licensed merch being sold, that stuff's funny and there are some decent visual gags, but it's pretty few and far between, especially the slapstick. You would think that a cinematic venture from the late nineties would have just as good, if not better, slapstick than theatrical shorts from the 30s and 40s, but sadly no. The best example is when one of the characters gets hit by a bull, they cut away from showing us any impact and just show us the character being thrown into the sky. Come on! That's like, the basics of slapstick. There is some good humour in this movie, but it's also got a lot of weak stuff.

Speaking of weak, let's talk about the animation. Now the actual animation itself is pretty good, the characters all move fluidly and there are not real noticeable mistakes. Honestly, the blue screening isn't the worst either, like you can easily tell that Michael Jordan and the Looney Tunes aren't really interacting, but like, on the scale of bad chromo key, I'd give this a five, mid level bad. No, the real problem is the CG integration, it is all kinds of hideous. When they put a CG coating on Michael or Wayne Knight, it looks so dated, and the alien spacecraft at the beginning of this movie doesn't even look like a cartoon in the real world, it looks like an out of place CGI effect in the real world. The CG integration is easily one of the worst things about this movie.

That being said, one of the best things about this movie does have to be the Soundtrack, genuinely it's got some good tracks on it, even the title theme it's just kind of an amalgamation of random songs you'd find on a Jock Jams CD. Honestly, most of the acting isn't that bad either, I mean yeah, the NBA stars are... clearly not actors, but Wayne Knight was fine, and the new cast they got for the Looney Tunes was fairly decent, Billy West did a good Bugs Bunny, Dee Bradley Baker as Daffy Duck was almost as good as Mel Blanc, Bob Bergen did a fantastic Porky Pig, Bill Farmer (one of my favourite Voice Actors) did a quality Sylvester, and even June Foray got to return as Granny. Of course, the big guy we have to mention is Danny DeVito, everyone loves Danny DeVito and he definitely gives one of the best performances in this movie. All in all, I'd say the acting is split, though I think there are more good performances in this movie than not.

And I think that's all that is worth mentioning. Yep, can't think of anything else worth bringing up... Okay, let's talk about Lola, and though I'd rather be talking about the song by The Kinks, Lola Bunny is worth mentioning because, she's probably the most recent addition to the Looney Tunes cast. I can't think of any new character added since Lola, and if there were any who were added, they didn't stick around. She's been added to not only the 2011 Looney Tunes Show, but prior to that she was a main character in Baby Looney Tunes, and has been pretty much a staple character since. Which is fascinating, because she's kind of boring in this movie. Yeah, everyone has already brought it up, but I'm going to mention it again, Lola's character in this movie is lacking, she's just kind of the standard tomboy girl character we've seen all throughout the nineties, and though I wouldn't mind her tomboyish side still being a thing, the 2011 iteration of the character is far more memorable.

All in all, Space Jam is kind of an even movie. It has some good animation, and some absolutely awful CG integration. It's got some good voice acting, and some lackluster on camera acting. It's got a good enough plot, but not really a Looney Tunes plot. It's not the worst movie I've watched, honestly I don't think it's that much worse than The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Movie I reviewed a while back, but much like that movie, I'd rather be watching the classic shorts, though I'll concede that this is a more original movie. Honestly, I don't know if I can really recommend this one, despite the good stuff, it's buried under mounds of not-as-good to down right awful stuff. If you're nostalgic for this movie, if you like it in that "So bad it's good" or "Dated timepiece" kind of way, I get it, but as for me, I think I'll just go back to the 1930s cartoons.