Classic Movie Review: 'Space Jam'

Space Jam has become a part of popular culture nostalgia in recent years. I can’t call it a critical reappraisal as critics are more likely to walk intentionally into traffic than actually sit down to assess Space Jam in any critical fashion after 25 years of its release, but a reappraisal has occurred nevertheless. The generations that came after Generation X have come to embrace the cheesy nostalgia and soundtrack of Space Jam regardless of the actual quality of Space Jam.

For the release of Space Jam: A New Legacy, the Everyone’s a Critic Movie Review Podcast did what few other critics are wont to do, we watched Space Jam for the purpose of actually reviewing it and well, it was about as fruitful as walking intentionally into traffic. Don’t get me wrong, Space Jam remains harmless fluff aimed at pre-critical thinking children, it’s just not a movie that is easy to think deeply about.

Space Jam, for those somehow unaware, was a 1994 vehicle for Basketball icon Michael Jordan. Having recently lost his father to a horrific murder, Michael left basketball for nearly 2 years so that he could pursue baseball, a sport his father had loved. Also during this time, Michael explored his options in Hollywood and found an unlikely partnership with Warner Brothers, the license holders of the Looney Tunes franchise.

Warner Brothers had been seeking a way to capitalize on the Looney Tunes characters for years but with Bugs and company aging out of the marketplace, in terms of relevance and availability to the lucrative younger demographic, the I.P had been dormant before someone got the idea to team up with Michael Jordan. With Jordan’s built in brand, popular with all four market quadrants, he provided an opportunity to age up the Looney Tunes while they created a chance to hide Michael’s less than stellar acting behind the antics of the animated characters in special effects.

I am using the soulless language of the marketer and studio here quite purposefully. No one can argue that there is anything pure or artistic about Space Jam. Space Jam is a soulless exercise in capitalism first and foremost. It is secondarily a movie intended to entertain children while also marketing characters, toys, shoes, t-shirts, etc. This is well known and I can’t fault the movie at all for this. If you went into Space Jam looking for pure childish entertainment, you were being naïve to a remarkable degree.

Watching Space Jam again for the first time in 25 plus years I could barely keep myself awake and attentive. I am a huge fan of Michael Jordan, there is no greater basketball player in history, in my opinion. That said, Michael Jordan the actor is stiff, dull and out of his depth. A great actor would struggle playing opposite cartoon characters, Jordan gets by because we expect him to be bad. Jordan is not and cannot be held to the standard of a real actor and because of that his performance evades judgment beyond the simple, artificial observation of his performance.

As for the Looney Tunes, outside of their role in the sequel to Space Jam, covered in another review, they’ve never been more soulless and unfunny than in Space Jam. There is an emptiness to the characterization of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and the gang that is easily attributable to the lack of care that anyone at Warner Brothers has or had for these characters. The WB is happy to roll out Bugs Bunny and company and have Bugs say his catchphrase and enact a series of gags but the invention is long gone, the care for the gags is absent, and the rote enactment of jokes creaks like a machine desperate in need of oil and repair.

But even as that is true, can I blame the movie for this? Honestly, can we blame anyone but ourselves for indulging Space Jam, a 90 plus minute commercial for various intellectual properties? If the makers of Space Jam set out for any other purpose than capitalizing on existing commercial markets how can we fault them for delivering exactly the product that they promised? That Space Jam is a successful commercial enterprise is our fault for buying in and not their fault for us buying it.

So, I set out to explain the cultural relevance of Space Jam, why it still resonates today? It’s the soundtrack. I know that’s a simple answer with not a great deal of nuance but it’s true. The movie isn’t special but R Kelly’s I Believe I Can Fly is special. Putting aside the fact that R. Kelly is a deviant monster currently and deservedly in prison, I Believe I Can Fly is one of the iconic songs of the 1990s. I Believe I Can Fly is a song that crosses all generational boundaries, it’s a song that everyone reading this knows the words to effortlessly. The reason that Space Jam is remembered is not Michael Jordan or the Looney Tunes, it’s I Believe I Can Fly.