By: Jesse Striewski

Last week, the world got its first look at the long-awaited sequel to the classic 1996 Looney Tunes basketball film, Space Jam. Despite receiving mostly negative feedback in large part to the film’s overuse of advertising and product placement (and beloved character Pepe Le Pew being the latest unfortunate victim thanks to woke cancel culture), Space Jam: A New Legacy is a shining example of pure family-fueled escapist entertainment, reminiscent of long-forgotten, more simple times.

The plot is fairly cut and dry; a fictionalized version of basketball star LeBron James and son Dom (Cedric Joe) find themselves trapped inside a virtual reality world ran by an evil, artificially intelligent life form known as Al-G Rhythm (played by Don Cheadle). The father and son are quickly pitted against each other in a do-or-die basketball match. James naturally enlists the help of Bugs Bunny and co. to win his son and freedom back.

James does his best in place of Michael Jordan as the lead from the first film, but his acting isn’t quite as on par as his gaming skills (his animated scenes are slightly better than the actual live ones). Many of the jokes are even centered around his “legacy” compared to Jordan’s (the cameo by actor Michael B. Jordan in place of Air Jordan is one of the more amusing gags in the entire flick).

And similar to 2018’s Ready Player One, it’s loaded with a plethora of pop culture references and cameos. Blink and you might miss appearances from The Flintstones, Scooby Doo, The Jetson’s, and the Gremlins on top of more in-your-face and obvious spots from various characters from the universes of Batman, Harry Potter, and The Matrix, among many others.

Will Space Jam: A New Legacy win any awards? Highly doubtful. Will it be studied for artistic greatness, or social commentary? Not likely. Yet it just might put some smiles on a few faces, and add a little bit of light to a world currently filled with so much darkness, which we could all honestly use a bit more of right now.

Rating: 3/5 Stars