Space Jam series

  • Space Jam: A New Legacy (2021)

    Space Jam: A New Legacy (2021)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, December 2021) Let’s not pretend that the first 1996 Space Jam was an artistic masterpiece or a heartfelt achievement — it was meant to sell toys, glorify Michael Jordan and keep the Looney Tunes relevant. As such, Space Jam: A New Legacy is very much in-line with expectations. Somehow, though, it feels worse. The film does not exist in a context where it’s one of many original works pushed by Warner Brothers — it’s meant as a tentpole among many other tentpoles, squeezing all potential out of commercially viable concepts. When LeBron James is absorbed by the film’s “Warner 3000 Serververse” to meet with the Looney Tunes and interact with the rest of the Warner-owned intellectual properties, the film feels like a dystopian celebration of cultural prostitution, with noble emotions packaged in sellable units for some uncaring financial overlord. I’m being more cynical than usual here, and I’m not sure why: After all, if there’s any movie studio that I like more than others, it’s Warner Brothers all the way to the gangster films of the 1930s. I’m also unusually fond of blending universes for comic purposes, and any metafictional component usually grabs my interest. But as the film greedily pillages from dozens of Warner franchises, I’m not amused as much as made acutely conscious of the hard walls between the Warner, Disney, Sony or Paramount properties — it’s all a hustle meant to subjugate storytelling to corporate initiatives, and A New Legacy is particularly naked in its intent. I’m not saying that it can’t be funny or surprising or entertaining (I’m not sure who I was least expecting to show up here: Ingrid Bergman, or A Clockwork Orange’s droogs) but it’s more wearying than anything else for anyone with any degree of media literacy. (It’s increasingly infuriating to see The Iron Giant being heralded as one of Warner’s masterpieces when it was essentially dumped and ignored by the studio upon initial release.) LeBron James himself is fine in his own role — but trying to make the film all about father-son bonding seems hilariously misguided when there aren’t more than five minutes of footage unmodified by special effects in the entire film. At least the Looney Tunes are decently funny, and their integration with other Warner properties is closer to the spirit of the cartoons than the cash-grab of the film. Otherwise, A New Legacy is definitely not interested in being just a film: it’s interested in selling you Warners, LeBron, Looney Tunes, basketball, video-games and chunks of the Warners back-catalogue — essentially, whatever is worth discretionary money to the target audience. I wouldn’t be so annoyed by the result if Warners was still in the business of making strong standalone films. But A New Legacy exists during a period in Warner’s leadership that’s all about retreads and catalogue exploitation to an extent that feels like storytelling bankruptcy. I sat through it without pain, but I felt distinctly more cynical by the end of it. Which is saying a lot considering where I started from.

  • Teen Titans Go! See Space Jam (2021)

    Teen Titans Go! See Space Jam (2021)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, July 2021) If the corporations’ encroaching stranglehold over intellectual property is teaching us anything, it’s that given time, corporate-controlled pop culture will eat itself. Any takedown will be allowed if it can be profitable, or if it gives the semblance of boosting another more recent project. There’s no other way to explain the existence of Teen Titans Go! See Space Jam, a weird cultural artifact that can only exist when a single entity (Warner Brothers) controls three different Intellectual Properties (Space Jam, Teen Titans and Looney Tunes) and has a hot new project to promote. Obviously scheduled to coincide with the release of Space Jam: A New Legacy, this “film” consists in having the Teen Titan Go! crew do a comic riff on an abbreviated version of the original Space Jam (keeping the special effects and cartoon characters, explicitly fast-forwarding through the duller material between humans), with a minimal amount of framing material in having the alien Nerdlucks visit the Teen Titans and watching the film. Inspired by Mystery Science Theater 3000, they interject commentary over the original film (sometimes freeze-framing the action), break for commercial and poke fun at 1990s moviemaking conventions. The irreverent humour of the Teen Titan Go series is there, but it’s clear that for all of the poking at the original Space Jam, it’s a piece of IP meant to prime the kiddie audience in being interested in the newest sequel. The comedy is limited, and much of the film is really about rewatching Space Jam in abbreviated form. It’s far more interesting as an artifact of how far tie-in product owners are willing to go, even in derision, when a conglomerate has its tentacles squeezing tightly around popular culture.