Rated PG for some cartoon violence and some language.
Now Playing In Theaters and Streaming on HBO Max Until August 15 Basketball legend LeBron James is having a hard time with his son Dom (Cedric Joe). Though LeBron wants him to follow in his footsteps, Dom is more interested in designing video games. Their rivalry of interests comes to a head when the two are at Warner Bros. and end up in the clutches of the studio’s ultra-powerful AI system that calls itself Al G Rhythm (Don Cheadle). Trapped inside his digital Server-Verse, the AI forces LeBron to assemble a team to play a game of basketball or he’ll hold him and Dom as prisoners for the rest of their lives. Though he has his dream team in mind, he’s instead left with the various Looney Tunes characters as his players. It’ll take everything he’s got to defeat the computer and his monstrous Goon Squad and save his family. It’s been 25 years since the original Space Jam came out in 1996. While it may not be highly remembered by some, it has grown a cult following with those who saw and loved it as kids. I recently saw the original in preparation for this new one, and can safely say that I wasn’t very fond of it. While I do love the Looney Tunes, the biggest problem is that the film’s premise is just plain stupid, and the movie isn’t good enough to make it seem any less so. The same expectations go for this long belated sequel. With so much money that can be made off nostalgia, it’s not really surprising that this was the driving force that finally got this film into production after decades of development hell. But the real questions is how is this movie going to prove that it has a reason to exist other than to be another corporate cash grab? The answer; there’s really no other reason. Space Jam: A New Legacy is nothing more than another attempt by a movie studio to make a quick buck off people who love the original. The premise isn’t any less stupid than when the original was made, and while this movie is a slightly more held together story than the first, it doesn’t save it from slowly devolving into borage of colors and Internet references that really test one’s patience. The funny thing is that the movie actually had the potential to be more of a parody of nostalgia-driven cash grabs. The whole movie is set in a digital space with every Warner Bros. property imaginable. They could have very easily given Al G Rhythm the motivation of maybe trying to recreate the original Space Jam in an attempt to make money to upgrade his servers or something. It’s almost shocking how, in a world where every movie seems to have a meta sense of humor, that none of the film’s writers ever thought of this. Probably the biggest thing going for the film is its animation. The film incorporates multiple visual styles depending on what Warner Bros. property the characters are interacting with. The movie as a whole is very colorful and pleasing to look at. It’s what held my attention during the first half of the film. However, the animation when it comes to the Looney Tunes falters on several occasions. When they are in their classic, hand-drawn look, their movements indicate that they were created through CGI rather than actual hand-drawn animation. It feels like a pale imitation of what we knew them as. Then there’s their appearances as three-dimensional CGI creations, which really just looks wrong. Making them 3D and giving them realistic features zaps away much of what made them goofy cartoons. This isn’t helped by the film having no real reason why they had to be CG other than it’s the studio saying, “hey, kids love CGI, why not?” Maybe the biggest improvement when compared to the original is LeBron James’s performance. The problem with Michael Jordan in the first film is that acting really wasn’t one of his strengths. Here, while James isn’t particularly great in his role, he does a much better job carrying the film and feeling more like a character rather than a familiar face. He really nails the emotional moments with his fictional son Dom. That’s really the biggest issue with the film. It’s just not as clever as it seems to want to be. Given the Looney Tunes’ long history of fourth wall breaking jokes, it seems strange that the jokes here are very conventional. And even the little bits of meta humor throughout are very obvious winks to the audience that end up falling flat. Just so much potential waisted by the studio thinking more about the money than anything else. Space Jam: A New Legacy is, at times, a slight improvement over its predecessor, but much like the first film, it’s never clever or self-deprecating enough to justify why is needed to exist in the first place. It’s still a dumb concept putting the Looney Tunes in a high-stakes basketball game with a real player, and this film doesn’t do anything to prove otherwise. You’ll have more fun watching some of the actual classic Looney Tunes shorts, all currently available to stream on HBO Max.
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Rated PG for rude humor, mild language and some action.
Now Playing In Theaters and Streaming on Peacock It’s been 40 years since young Tim Templeton discovered his baby brother Ted (Alec Baldwin) was an agent of Baby Corp and helped him save the world’s love from the rival company Puppy Co. Now all grown up, Tim (James Marsden) has a wife named Carol (Eva Longoria) and two daughters named Tabitha (Ariana Greenblatt) and Tina. Ted, on the other hand, is a lonely businessman who values work over family. Tim is worried that Tabitha, who was accepted into the prestigious Acorn Academy, is more interested in her schoolwork than being a kid. But things change when he discovers his little baby Tina (Amy Sedaris) is also an undercover agent of Baby Corp, and manages to get Ted to arrive at the house. The company wants Ted to use a new baby formula to return to his baby self for a new mission. Both Ted and Tim, who also drinks the special formula, are back to their childhood forms from the original film. Tina reveals that the mission involves Tabitha’s school, run by the mysterious Dr. Erwin Armstrong (Jeff Goldblum) who has more nefarious intentions with the world’s toddlers. Tim and Ted will have put aside their sibling rivalry in order to infiltrate the school and save the world again. While 2017’s The Boss Baby isn’t among the best films produced by DreamWorks Animation, it certainly isn’t among the worst. It has a number of funny and heartwarming moments and great animation that’s reminiscent of classic 60s cartoons, even when the story isn’t all that well constructed. Much of this style is retained for the sequel, which is nice. Unfortunately, so is the sloppiness of the story. This film honestly feels like an unnecessary sequel. The overall premise, while being a little more straightforward than its predecessor, somehow also makes even less sense. While making Tim and Ted adults kind of works to show how at least Tim would be a father, the new baby formula feels like a contrived excuse to get the characters back into the forms we knew them from. The story also feels very unfocused. The narrative moves forward at an almost hyper pace, bouncing from bombastic action scene to thin character moments to the point where it can be hard to keep up with what’s happening. Kids will most likely enjoy this, as their short attention spans are only looking for the slapstick jokes. It’s clear that this time around, DreamWorks was only interested in appealing to the little ones. There’s also a number of story elements that feel very underdeveloped. The film appears to be criticizing various aspects of corporate greed and capitalism, as well as what it means to be a success, the inevitable nature of consumerism, and the true meaning of family. The film tries to tackle way too much all at once, and can never really figure out which theme deserves the most attention. So they end up feeling more like familiar jumping off points for kids rather than true explorations of them. There are a number of good moments, however. The story is successful in pulling at the heartstrings at certain times, and there are a few laugh-out-loud moments here and there. And just like the first film, the animation is stunning. It invokes the same style of the first film, once again looking like a classic cartoon from a bygone era. Unfortunately, many of these good things are overshadowed by the many flaws. Even when there are funny moments, they are few and far between. There are loads of jokes flying by throughout the runtime, and almost none of them get breathing room. They’re mostly tired sight gags, pop culture references, and repeat gags from the first film, and very few of them land. The cast also feels lackluster. Alec Baldwin doesn’t sound all that happy to be back in the role as the titular Boss Baby. He sounds like he’s only interested in collecting a paycheck rather than giving a good performance. James Marsden does do a good job in his role as Tim, taking over for Tobey Maguire. Though when he voices Tim when he’s back to his 7-year-old self, it sounds really weird. The only members that turn in good performances are Sedaris and Greenblatt. Sedaris sounds like she’s having a good time as her no nonsense agent of Baby Corp. I also enjoy Greenblatt and the range she has. After showing off her skills in last year’s Love and Monsters, this one shows that she has just as much potential as a voice actress as a regular actress. The Boss Baby: Family Business improves on some things from the original, but as a whole, is far from an improvement. The animation is really good and there are some funny and heartwarming moments, but they are often overshadowed by a story that shares the same high energy and lack of focus as its pint-sized protagonists. Kids will most likely enjoy it, but if parents want to be entertained, you’re better off watching the first film instead. |