Space Jam (1996)

Space Jam (1996)

6/10

 Staring

Michael Jordan

Billy West

Dee Bradley Baker

Danny DeVito

 

Directed by Joe Pytka

 

(contains mild spoilers)

Space Jam was the 90s happy place, it was like a blend of various good ideas, with the main star being at that time one of the most recognized people on screen. The Nike ads from the 90s of Bugs Bunny and Michael Jordan was the starting point of the Space Jam idea. We almost did not have this movie when Jordan retired in 93, but his return to the game in 95 brought back the idea and we will always be thankful for his return. In the case of the blend between live-action and animation, Warner Bros did not do fantastically well and more of the praise should go to the Jordan. He managed to deliver a top-notch performance for someone who was not a seasoned actor and was never going to be. Even though I felt the animation was a little to slapstick and seemed like they could have stepped it up better, it is ignorable with the ideas that merged everything. The story in this movie is not the best they could have come up with, but Space Jam will forever be one of those 90 movies, that everyone saw.

The plot is about aliens. These aliens whose theme park was going out of business because the park was dull. They decided to go catch the Looney Tunes characters and bring them to their planet and use them as a sort of side attractions. The owner of the park Mr. Swackhammer then sends his minions to abduct the Looney Tunes. The Tunes were able to come to an agreement with these minions to go willingly if there were to lose in a basketball match. The catch was: the minions were small and stocky, and it looked like a magical idea. The minions agreed and sorted out the top basketball players in the NBA, Jordan at that time had retired. They marked Charles Barkley, Shawn Bradley, Patrick Ewing, Larry Johnson, and Muggsy Bogues and used their alien powers to steal their basketball talents.

Here is something about movies like this that I do not get. You are aliens with the ability to capture the Tunes, you have won already. But this will not be a sports movie without any sports so instead of the aliens to just take their hostage, they decided to play games with them.

They came back to the Tunes now huge, six-foot plus and able to play the hell out of basketball. The Tunes were in trouble, so using their own set of skills they were able to get Jordan into their world, by lassoing him down a hole when he was playing golf with Bill Murrray. Bugs explains the situation to Jordan hoping he can come and help them. Jordan at first refuses, but upon seeing the aliens now calling themselves Monstars, he changed his mind. He decided to help play and train the Tunes to stop the Monstars.

Space Jam was one of the first movies to be shot in an entire green screen, as Jordan had to work with other basketball players and actors in green suits. Space Jam had some very amazing soundtrack when the movie came out, songs that blasted through the radio in the 90s reaching the top of the charts. The soundtrack got a six-times platinum certification.

In 2021, a standalone sequel was done and this time the Basketball player in focus is LeBron James.