Welcome To The SPACE JAM!

Space Jam: A New Legacy is the highly anticipated Sequel to the 1996 Space Jam starring Michael Jordan. Lebron James takes over as the main character and at the core is the same theme: Family. 

The movie is a touch of the old classic giving seasoned viewers several nostalgic punchlines, with a heavy focus on today’s digital world that would appeal to younger viewers. The new Space Jam highlights black in tech with its portrayal of young Dom as a computer software genius. He has dreams beyond the court of becoming a video game developer, having already created a basketball game with just one small glitch. Dom has his eyes set on E3,  a special video game conference while his father focuses only on having a legacy of his own; two sons following in his footsteps to become legendary ball players like himself. 

Lebron and Dom attend a meeting at Warner Brothers (my one big critique of the movie), to discuss an idea that their artificial intelligence created, having Lebron scanned and placed into multiple WB movies and series. The heavy focus on Warner Brothers and literally all of its assets was quite unappealing in the movie giving a very self-serving feel. However, overlooking that, the movie really picks up when the Al – G Rhythm (the Artificial Intelligence played by Don Cheadle)  traps Dom and Lebron in virtual reality, manipulates Dom to turn against his father and challenges Lebron to a game of basketball. 

This is where the classic film comes into play. Lebron finds Bugs Bunny, they round up the team (Tune Squad) and they play against Al – G Rhythms villainous, cheating Goon Squad. After a brutal three quarters Lebron realizes he has to embrace what is unnatural to him, setting aside his fundamentals of basketball and embracing the Tune Squad and Doms way of playing; using FUN. 

The movie comes with lots of lessons particularly leaning on accepting your children for who they are and SUPPORTING their dreams! 

“Taking care of the ones you love is fundamental.”

Let’s talk about the Looney Tunes! Zendaya killed it as Lola Bunny, and it was nice and refreshing to see the characters we love be true to themselves. We got to see everyone from the original movies down to the original goon squad although they weren’t the ones playing this time. 

All in all the movie was a fun family watch. See it now on HBO Max streaming until August 15th. 

My key takeaways from the movie: 

• Always stick to your goals no matter who doesn’t support you!
• Listen to the kids; sometimes they do know what’s best for them!
• Be yourself, trust yourself. 
• Never give up even when the odds are against you!