BY CHRISTOPHER STAMM
GUEST movie REVIEWER
Space Jam 2: A New Legacy (Showing in theatres)
Rated PG – It should be a G, but it’s not, because people are far too serious nowadays.
Bugs and the gang are back after far too long and, joining this time in place of Michael Jordan, is LeBron James. (I still think Jordan is the superior player, but to each their own.) The plot is simple: father and son don’t connect, bad guy wants to rule the digital world, Bugs and the gang to the rescue. But we are not seeing it for its plot, are we? No, we are seeing it because you either have kids who want to see it or because nostalgia commands you to.
For Mary and me, it was nostalgia. Like so many of you, we grew up with the Looney Tunes gang. No Saturday morning was complete without sitting cross legged on the floor (ahh, to be flexible again) in our PJ’s pounding down whatever sugar-laced monstrosity of a “breakfast cereal” we managed to convince our Mom to buy that week.
Space Jam 2 is fun, it’s got a lot going for it, and the kids will like it because it’s colorful, funny, and filled with cartoon antics. We adults will enjoy it because there are just enough pop culture references aimed at us to keep us entertained and laughing. (In particular, there is one “Mad Max: Fury Road” reference that made me bust out laughing.)
Space Jam 2 is worth seeing. As I said, it is fun and funny and has some heart to it, but for me, it was seeing my old Saturday morning friends back at it that made me smile and remember a simpler time when this film would have been rated G and I could still jump up from a cross-legged position without pulling my back out and being incapacitated for two days.
Space Jam 2: A New Legacy gets a solid three out of five stars, because it’s worth seeing our old childhood friends in the theatre. It missed out on getting four stars because I like Jordan better. Let the arguments begin.