Space Jam (1996) Review
This summer I watched the Netflix documentary series The Last Dance, which is about the
Chicago Bulls winning the NBA championship in the 1996/1997 season. It’s a
fantastic documentary that I highly recommend, and at one point they briefly
talk about Michael Jordan taking time off to work on “his film” which was the
Warner Brothers’ production known as Space
Jam. When I was a kid, I loved Space
Jam, for a very simple reason: I liked basketball, and I liked the Looney
Tunes, and Space Jam was about both.
When I got older I remembered it just as a silly kids movie, but even revisiting
it as an adult, I found it surprisingly entertaining. After being inspired to
revisit Space Jam again once finished
The Last Dance, I found I had a lot
of thoughts on it, because even though its existence was solely based on the
popularity of two totally different cultural icons, Space Jam is a significant film to a whole generation.
First off, let me explain what Space Jam is all about in case you aren’t familiar with it. The
greatest basketball player ever to play the game, Michael Jordan, retires from
the NBA and tries playing baseball, but doesn’t find the same success on the
diamond as he found on the court. He’s given a new assistant, Stan, played by
Wayne Knight—seriously, it’s just not a great 90’s movie without Wayne Knight—and
he just wants to get away from him. So, when Mike’s out golfing with Stan, Bill
Murray (as himself), and former NBA star and coach Larry Bird (also as himself)
and gets sucked down a golf hole into the world of the Looney Tunes, who
apparently live at the center of the earth (?), he’s okay with it, because it
means he gets to play basketball again. See, Bugs Bunny and the rest of the
Tunes have a little problem: aliens from Moron Mountain have been sent by their
evil boss to bring the Looney Tunes to their theme park and turn them into
slaves, but after the Tunes challenge them to a basketball game, thinking it’ll
be easy to
You may have noticed a couple of question marks in that
description. That’s because the premise is pretty out there when you stop to
think about it. I mean, how did this idea even come to fruition? It actually
originated as a Nike ad campaign featuring Jordan and Bugs, which grew into the
bizarre premise that eventually made it to the big screen. One of the funniest
scenes is when the players who lost their talent seek the help of an oracle,
and when she looks into the crystal ball, she tells them the exact premise of
the film, sounding just as surprised as you’d expect. It really does sound like
a dream, but hey, it’s original, and somehow, it worked.
Visually, I can’t believe how well Space Jam holds up. For the time, it was pretty cutting edge to be
shooting completely on green screen sets for so much of production, but the
blending of the actors and the animated setting works pretty well. Sure, there
are some parts that are obviously lacking detail, like the uninterrupted shot
through Moron Mountain near the beginning of the film, but for 1996, it’s
pretty impressive.
One of the biggest highlights that’s remained legendary to
this day is the soundtrack. The opening theme song just gets you so pumped up,
and with so many other hype tracks like “Get Ready for This” and “Pump up the
Jam” it’s no wonder the Space Jam
soundtrack was one of the most popular film soundtracks of the 1990’s. I also
want to give credit to the original score by James Newton Howard, who gives the
Monstars some menacing themes, elevates some peak moments in the story, and
captures the same sounds that always accompanied the joyful antics of the Looney
Tunes in the original animated cartoons, only these tracks are fresh for the
film, with the exception of the original Merrie Melodies theme that plays once
briefly when the aliens first arrive in the world of the Tunes.
I have to touch on the man, the myth, the legend, the guy
who gets top billing, even over Bugs Bunny himself. Michael Jordan needs no
introduction, but the opening scene with him playing basketball out in the back
yard in 
the middle of the night is a surprisingly inspiring way to start things
off, and then we’re treated to a montage of highlights from MJ’s career as the
opening credits play. There’s very little setup for Michael as the main
character, but there really didn’t need to be much. I have to give him credit
for not playing up his part all goofy or exaggerated. He’s the straight man to
Bugs Bunny’s more extreme persona, and it’s easy to forget he had to film many
of the scenes he shares with the Looney Tunes and Monstars on a green screen
set, which meant there were no real actors in the scenes with him, and he had
to react and say his lines to imaginary characters. Michael is an athlete, not
an actor, so I’m not going to fault him for some clunky line delivery or lack of
realistic reactions to encountering a world full of living, breathing cartoon
characters.
Space Jam is
pretty easy to criticize, and I’m definitely not trying to say it’s some
misunderstood masterpiece. It’s played for laughs mainly, and there’s a definite
lack of realism—beyond the fact that Michael interacts with cartoon characters.
He just goes along with it all, as does his assistant Stan, simply because if
they didn’t, the flow of the story would be interrupted. Most of the movie
doesn’t make much sense. The plight of the Looney Tunes is also questionable,
because if you know anything about the history of the characters, it’s pretty
easy to question why they would have such a hard time defeating five
muscled-out Martians—or, really, have a hard time at all.
The villains are extremely dopey and kind of annoying in
their pre-Monstars forms. I can’t even tell you what any of their names are,
but their boss, the evil Mr. Swackhammer (voiced by Danny DeVito) is a slimy,
detestable villain in all the right ways. His design sort of reminds me of The
Grinch from the animated TV special, which is fitting, given The Grinch was
directed by veteran Looney Tunes director Chuck Jones. The Moron Mountain quintet
become much more interesting after they absorb the talent of the NBA players. I
like how each one has a unique design, and retains traits from the players they
stole the talent from. For instance, the red one is short and talks quick, kind
of like Muggsy Bogues, one of the five players to lose their skills. The blue
one is the only one who remains dimwitted, but still manages to be funny, and
is the tallest one of the five. My favourite is the green one, with an almost
dragon-like appearance, sporting back spikes and even breathing fire at one
point.
Quite famously, original Looney Tunes director Chuck Jones
came out and actively criticized Space
Jam for its mishandling of the classic characters. He’s right about a few
things, like how lame it is that Porky Pig wets himself out of fear of the
Monstars, and the Tunes would have had no problem taking care of them without
the help of Michael. More moments than that stand out to me in negative ways.
When the aliens show up and say the Tunes are now their prisoners, they all
laugh, but when one of them shoots Yosemite Sam with a laser gun and
disintegrates everything on his body except his underwear, everyone’s hands
shoot up and they instantly surrender. Prior to this, they’ve already seen Bugs
Bunny completely chained up, and while he does easily shed the chains moments
later, I think if aliens trotted out Bugs in shackles that would have been more
than enough to make everyone bow down to them.
One of the weirdest things is to look in the background of
the stadium at certain points during the big game. The audience is filled with
Looney Tunes characters, many of them recognizable but only ever having
appeared in a handful of cartoons or possibly even just one or two…the thing
is, the animation on them is like two or three frames that just repeat over and
over, and they are often copied multiple times. So, for instance, there are at
least three female cats that have been painted with the white skunk stripe—you
know, the one Pepe Lepew is always after?—and these little details are more
noticeable now that the film can be viewed in HD, but as a kid, I didn’t
notice, and even as an adult the DVD quality wasn’t always high enough to make
it very detectable.
Something that frustrates me a lot now that didn’t used to is
how the clincher at the end is Michael realizing he can basically do anything
with his body because “this is Looney Tune land!” and uses that to his
advantage in the last ten seconds of the game. But, remember when he first
encounters the Monstars and they scrunch him up into a ball and bounce him
around a whole bunch, but he’s fine after? Shouldn’t he have already realized
it then and not needed reminding in the last ten seconds of the game? But, hey,
it’s a movie for kids, right?
I loved Space Jam
as a kid, and watched it over and over, thanks to my dad, who taped it off TV
for me on VHS. I watched that tape so many times I still can’t watch the movie
now without my brain triggering images of the commercial breaks popping up
between key scenes and my hand instinctively reaching for the remote control to
fast forward. I had a thought while I was watching this last time, and I don’t
know if it really makes sense or not, but I was trying to figure out who this
film was for. You see, there are kid’s
films, and there are family films.
What’s the difference? To me, a family film is something you’d sit down and
watch as a whole family, because the premise is kid-friendly enough that
children will be able to get it and find plenty to enjoy (though isn’t necessary
kid specific) but there will be
content for the adults to enjoy as well that will go over the heads of the
kids. So for instance, something like the original Pinocchio is a kid’s movie, designed specifically to appeal to
kids, with adult viewers not in mind. The
Sandlot, which is about kids playing baseball in the 60’s, is what I’d call
a family film, because the premise and characters will appeal to kids, but a
significant quantity of the jokes, references, and situations will resonate
more with adults. An even better example could be Who Framed Roger Rabbit, which did the same thing Space Jam did by blending animated
characters in a real world setting with real actors, and to my knowledge, Roger Rabbit was the first feature film
to do this so extensively. It’s a fun family
film, with cartoon characters that, at the time it came out, both appealed
to kids who saw them on TV and to adults who saw them in theaters when they
were originally screened all the way back in the 1930’s and 40’s, but there’s
also some pretty dark stuff that is likely to freak kids out but entertain
adults.
What I’m trying to say is: I think Space Jam has a kid’s movie premise, but a family film approach to
the material. No time is wasted in getting the premise hammered out for
viewers: bad aliens want the Looney Tunes, Tunes need to bring Michael Jordan
out of retirement so they can beat them. It sounds like a story for children.
It pretty much is. But, Looney Tunes
were originally designed to appeal to all audiences, that’s why they showed
them before feature films back in the day, and there were always parts included
that were more for the parents watching than the kids. This is true in Space Jam. As a kid, I disliked the
montage of the NBA players trying to figure out what happened to their talent,
but as an adult, it’s one of the funniest parts. The dialogue is funny, the
situations are amusing, and the concept is just high enough that most little
kids won’t really understand why it’s even in the movie at all. Other meta
jokes too like how Bill Murray is able to show up at the end and be the fifth
player they need to win the game went right over my head as a kid, but make me
chuckle now. It has the right mix of humour to appeal to all ages, even if the
premise might come off as something specifically targeting kids.
Space Jam might seem
like a defunct piece of entertainment built around a fandom that has since
moved on or grown up and doesn’t really appeal anymore, but it is as alive
today as it was when it came out over two decades ago. When I googled it, the
original website came up, and it’s still active. Space Jam: A New Legacy, the long, long-awaited sequel starring LeBron James is schedule to finally
come out in 2021 (please let there be a Michael Jordan cameo!), and as I said
in the intro, a whole generation has fond memories of Space Jam. There are even memes of it still going around. The best
part of Space Jam, to me, is despite
the silly story, it’s an inspiring movie for young viewers. The first time I
saw it I remember not really grasping much of the finer aspects to who Michael
Jordan was, he was just this almost mythic figure, the greatest basketball
player there ever was, simple as that. I mean, he got to play a basketball game
with the Looney Tunes against aliens. That’s, like, the coolest sports
game ever. It’s not so much in the film’s fantasy moments that we get to see
the real skill of the real Michael Jordan, but in the opening and closing
moments, we do get a glimpse at the
real Michael in action, and it’s a greater sight than any special effects
Hollywood can muster.
I guess a good question would be: do I actually recommend it
to those who haven’t seen it? Well, I’m not so sure I can. If you’re mostly
interested in Michael Jordan himself, then I wouldn’t, because it doesn’t even
really showcase him at his best. If anything, I’d recommend The Last Dance on Netflix instead. If
you’re a big Looney Tunes fan,
chances are you’ve probably already checked it out, or have avoided it if
you’re a purist and only like the original shorts. I’d give it a soft
recommendation to a Looney Tunes fan,
because it captures enough of the spirit of the Tunes that it’ll entertain in
much the same way as the cartoons, and it’s cool seeing the animated characters
interact with real-life people and settings, too. On that point, I think it’s a
better live-action/animation hybrid for the Looney
Tunes characters than 2003’s Looney
Tunes: Back in Action, but it’s still not nearly as great as the original
animated shorts, of course. If you’re just looking for a family-friendly
mash-up of a sports icon and cartoon character icons with lots of jokes and a
bit of heart to take your mind off things for 88 minutes, I think Space Jam is worth putting on. “Come on
and slam, and welcome to the Jam!”
