{"id":302750,"date":"2021-07-19T20:42:24","date_gmt":"2021-07-19T17:42:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/it-couldve-been-worse-film\/"},"modified":"2021-07-19T20:42:24","modified_gmt":"2021-07-19T17:42:24","slug":"it-couldve-been-worse-film","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/it-couldve-been-worse-film\/","title":{"rendered":"#It Could&#8217;ve Been Worse \u2013 \/Film"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"ez-toc-container\" class=\"ez-toc-v2_0_85 counter-hierarchy ez-toc-counter ez-toc-custom ez-toc-container-direction\">\n<p class=\"ez-toc-title\" style=\"cursor:inherit\">Table of Contents<\/p>\n<label for=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-6a33b10a3761c\" class=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-label\"><span class=\"\"><span class=\"eztoc-hide\" style=\"display:none;\">Toggle<\/span><span class=\"ez-toc-icon-toggle-span\"><svg style=\"fill: #dd3333;color:#dd3333\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" class=\"list-377408\" width=\"20px\" height=\"20px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" fill=\"none\"><path d=\"M6 6H4v2h2V6zm14 0H8v2h12V6zM4 11h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2zM4 16h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2z\" fill=\"currentColor\"><\/path><\/svg><svg style=\"fill: #dd3333;color:#dd3333\" class=\"arrow-unsorted-368013\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"10px\" height=\"10px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" version=\"1.2\" baseProfile=\"tiny\"><path d=\"M18.2 9.3l-6.2-6.3-6.2 6.3c-.2.2-.3.4-.3.7s.1.5.3.7c.2.2.4.3.7.3h11c.3 0 .5-.1.7-.3.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7zM5.8 14.7l6.2 6.3 6.2-6.3c.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7c-.2-.2-.4-.3-.7-.3h-11c-.3 0-.5.1-.7.3-.2.2-.3.5-.3.7s.1.5.3.7z\"\/><\/svg><\/span><\/span><\/label><input type=\"checkbox\"  id=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-6a33b10a3761c\" checked aria-label=\"Toggle\" \/><nav><ul class='ez-toc-list ez-toc-list-level-1 ' ><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-1\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/it-couldve-been-worse-film\/#Its_Perfectly_Fine_on_its_Own%E2%80%A6\" >It\u2019s Perfectly Fine on its Own\u2026<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-2\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/it-couldve-been-worse-film\/#%E2%80%A6Until_it_Becomes_a_Parade_of_IP\" >\u2026Until it Becomes a Parade of IP<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-3\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/it-couldve-been-worse-film\/#A_Dearth_of_Creativity\" >A Dearth of Creativity<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/nav><\/div>\n<p>&#8220;<strong>#It Could&#8217;ve Been Worse \u2013 \/Film<\/strong>&#8221;<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>                            <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-677140 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/d13ezvd6yrslxm.cloudfront.net\/wp\/wp-content\/images\/spacejam-anewlegacy-tunes-closeup-700x300.jpg\" alt=\"Space Jam: A New Legacy Soundtrack\" width=\"700\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/d13ezvd6yrslxm.cloudfront.net\/wp\/wp-content\/images\/spacejam-anewlegacy-tunes-closeup.jpg 700w, https:\/\/d13ezvd6yrslxm.cloudfront.net\/wp\/wp-content\/images\/spacejam-anewlegacy-tunes-closeup-360x154.jpg 360w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s the thing: I tried with all of my might to give\u00a0<em><strong>Space Jam: A New Legacy\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>a fair shake.<\/p>\n<p>I was a nine-year-old obsessed with both Michael Jordan and the Looney Tunes when the first\u00a0<em>Space Jam<\/em> came out, and I loved it. I wanted to give the new sequel, starring\u00a0<strong>LeBron James\u00a0<\/strong>and directed by <strong>Malcom D. Lee<\/strong>, at least as much of a chance as I would have as a kid. It\u2019s easy to be cynical and simply hate on things we find childish or silly, so I tried to abandon that.<\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately,\u00a0<em>Space Jam: A New Legacy<\/em> is so full of egregious IP-grabbing that there are moments where the movie truly begins to feel like a Warner Bros. edition of\u00a0<em>Where\u2019s Waldo<\/em> with a pulse. In order to have a pulse, though, one would need a heart, and that\u2019s sorely lacking throughout\u00a0<em>A New Legacy<\/em>. Some much of it is crass commercialism and lowest-common-denominator \u201cremember when\u201d nostalgia turned up to a point beyond parody. There are moments where you can see a\u00a0<em>Space Jam<\/em> sequel that would have totally worked, but instead WB took the lazy route.<br \/>\n<!-- SlashFilm_300x250_In_Post -->If you somehow haven\u2019t already made up your mind about whether or not to check out\u00a0<em>Space Jam: A New Legacy<\/em>, we have a review for that. This one, however, is getting into the nitty gritty of why\u00a0<em>Space Jam: A New Legacy<\/em> signals a terrifying direction in storytelling.<\/p>\n<p>The rest of this review contains\u00a0<strong>major spoilers<\/strong> for\u00a0<em>Space Jam: A New Legacy<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-684997 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/d13ezvd6yrslxm.cloudfront.net\/wp\/wp-content\/images\/sjcheadle-700x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"700\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/d13ezvd6yrslxm.cloudfront.net\/wp\/wp-content\/images\/sjcheadle.jpg 700w, https:\/\/d13ezvd6yrslxm.cloudfront.net\/wp\/wp-content\/images\/sjcheadle-360x154.jpg 360w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px\" \/><\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Its_Perfectly_Fine_on_its_Own%E2%80%A6\"><\/span>It\u2019s Perfectly Fine on its Own\u2026<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>If you remove the rampant IP-borrowing,\u00a0<em>Space Jam: A New Legacy <\/em>is alright. It\u2019s not a masterpiece by any means, but it\u2019s a perfectly serviceable kids\u2019 flick. There\u2019s some family-positive messaging about the bonds between father and son, it\u2019s paced fast enough to keep kids\u2019 attention, and it\u2019s bright and colorful. In many ways, it feels like a completely worthy successor to the original\u00a0<em>Space Jam<\/em><strong><em>.\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>A lot of people my age tend to put the original on a pedestal, but without the lens of nostalgia, it\u2019s easy to see both films as the simple cash-grabs they are. And that\u2019s fine. Sometimes <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/watch-movies-tv-seriess\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"8\" title=\"Watch Movies &amp; TV Series\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">movies<\/a> are allowed to just be shiny silly junk that distracts us from reality for two hours.<br \/>\n<!-- SlashFilm_300x250_In_Post_2 -->When it\u2019s just being silly colorful nonsense,\u00a0<em>A New Legacy<\/em> is unremarkable, but harmless enough. The animation is pretty basic, the score and soundtrack are your typical jock jams, and the humor is about what you\u2019d expect. There\u2019s a couple of performer cameos, including\u00a0<strong>Sarah Silverman<\/strong>,\u00a0<strong>Michael B. Jordan<\/strong>,\u00a0<strong>Steven Yeun<\/strong>, <strong>Lil Rel Howery<\/strong>, and sportscaster\u00a0<strong>Ernie Johnson<\/strong>. The cameos are, like everything else outside of the IP-swiping, just fine. Howery stands out, playing himself after he gets sucked into the WB Universe as an announcer for the basketball <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/game\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"7\" title=\"Game\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">game<\/a> between James and\u00a0the Goon Squad. If the dude could host the most awkward Oscars pre-show ever, he can certainly hold his own announcing the nonsense that h<a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/download-scripts-themes-apps\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"9\" title=\"Download Scripts &amp; Themes &amp; Apps\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">app<\/a>ens in this basketball game. Oh, and the ever-reliable\u00a0<strong>Don Cheadle<\/strong> is absolutely great as the villain, a rogue AI who controls the WB Universe.<\/p>\n<p>There are moments of fun scattered throughout the movie, and I can see quite a few more that would have tickled me in my less cynical years. I can imagine kids who love video games and LeBron James and Looney Tunes absolutely eating this up. It\u2019s important to remember the audience here, and as a kids\u2019 movie,\u00a0<em>Space Jam: A New Legacy<\/em> works.<\/p>\n<p>The problem is what they put in there for adults.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-684998 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/d13ezvd6yrslxm.cloudfront.net\/wp\/wp-content\/images\/sjkillmenow-700x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"700\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/d13ezvd6yrslxm.cloudfront.net\/wp\/wp-content\/images\/sjkillmenow.jpg 700w, https:\/\/d13ezvd6yrslxm.cloudfront.net\/wp\/wp-content\/images\/sjkillmenow-360x154.jpg 360w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px\" \/><\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"%E2%80%A6Until_it_Becomes_a_Parade_of_IP\"><\/span>\u2026Until it Becomes a Parade of IP<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>The trailers for\u00a0<em>A New Legacy<\/em> promised the Looney Tunes gang hopping through famous WB films, much to my horror. There\u2019s something mildly disturbing about seeing Granny dressed in a black vinyl catsuit doing the Trinity kick in\u00a0<strong><em>The Matrix<\/em><\/strong>. Thankfully, the franchise-hopping section of <em>A New Legacy<\/em> is shorter than I expected it would be. Unfortunately, they go into some classic films that I thought were beyond touching.<br \/>\n<!-- SlashFilm_300x250_In_Post_3 -->When James lands in Tuneworld and finds it empty, Bugs Bunny explains to him that the other cartoons have gone off to find relevance elsewhere. That might be a commentary on the relevance of the Looney Tunes in 2021, except that the movie contradicts itself by constantly making the Tunes second fiddle in their own movie. James and Bugs then go on a tour of several of the \u201cworlds\u201d inside this digital hellscape, grabbing Foghorn Leghorn from <em><strong>Game of Thrones\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>world, Daffy Duck from\u00a0the\u00a0<em><strong>Superman<\/strong><\/em><strong>\u00a0<\/strong>animated series world, and more.\u00a0It\u2019s pretty pandering, especially when\u00a0Rick and Morty fly in on their spaceship and drop off the Tasmanian Devil, telling James \u201cHe\u2019s your problem now.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>All of these feel a little crass, but they\u2019re not criminal. Seeing Yosemite Sam seated at the piano in <strong><em>Casablanca<\/em><\/strong>, however, made my stomach turn over.\u00a0<em>Casablanca<\/em> is more than a classic film; it\u2019s the incredible work of refugee artists telling their story during one of the world\u2019s most horrific wars.\u00a0<em>Casablanca<\/em> isn\u2019t a piece of <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/social-mediaa\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"1\" title=\"Social Media\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">media<\/a> just to be consumed and remixed, it\u2019s a piece of history. The people in the film aren\u2019t alive to speak out against this, and even if they could, it doesn\u2019t matter because WB owns everything.<\/p>\n<p>The Looney Tunes have always inserted themselves in other properties and riffed endlessly on whatever\u2019s popular. There are entire DVD collections of Looney Tunes parodies, including such titles as \u201cThe Duxorcist,\u201d \u201cInvasion of the Bunny Snatchers,\u201d and \u201cHare and Loathing in Las Vegas.\u201d What\u2019s different between those parodies and this random grab-bag of property appearances is that, well, there\u2019s not really any parody here. The Looney Tunes aren\u2019t riffing on the properties they\u2019re in \u2013 they\u2019re just replacing the original characters. There\u2019s a big difference between making a spoof of something popular and simply referencing something popular, and this is entirely the latter. It\u2019s the<em> South Park<\/em> episode about \u2018memberberries stretched to two hours and without a hint of self-awareness.<\/p>\n<p>When we eventually get to the big basketball game,\u00a0Cheadle\u2019s Al G. Rhythm summons a crowd to root for his Goon Squad. He claims to summon goons from all of the other WB properties, but there\u2019s quite a few good guys in the mix too. He then proceeds to insert an entire crowd of extras in from the Warner Brothers catalogue, bouncing around behind him with wild glee. I understand including characters that kids will appreciate, but there\u2019s no reason to have the droogs from\u00a0<strong><em>A Clockwork Orange<\/em><\/strong> or the nun from\u00a0<em><strong>The Devils<\/strong>.\u00a0<\/em>This feels like a weird flex by WB to remind us that they own\u00a0<em>everything\u00a0<\/em>and they can do what they want with it. What feels like an inside joke by the production team ends up feeling\u2026weird. And not a good weird.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-684999 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/d13ezvd6yrslxm.cloudfront.net\/wp\/wp-content\/images\/sjww-700x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"700\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/d13ezvd6yrslxm.cloudfront.net\/wp\/wp-content\/images\/sjww.jpg 700w, https:\/\/d13ezvd6yrslxm.cloudfront.net\/wp\/wp-content\/images\/sjww-360x154.jpg 360w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px\" \/><\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"A_Dearth_of_Creativity\"><\/span>A Dearth of Creativity<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>There are plenty of things to complain about in\u00a0<em>A New Legacy<\/em> that just feel like petty nitpicks. James\u2019 acting ranges from bad to worse, and his voice-over quality occasionally sounds like a 3:00 A.M. Skype call. Bugs Bunny meme \u201cBig Chungus\u201d actually makes an onscreen appearance. The 3D versions of the Looney Tunes are the stuff of nightmares. These things don\u2019t really matter, though, when you\u2019re a kid and your sports hero makes a movie with your favorite cartoons. So I\u2019m not here to pick at those things, but instead to think about what\u00a0<em>Space Jam: A New Legacy<\/em> might have been.<br \/>\n<!-- SlashFilm_300x250_In_Post_4 -->There\u2019s a decent movie buried in here, at least as decent as the original\u00a0<em>Space Jam<\/em>. Replace the \u201ctraipsing through live-action movies\u201d sections with some more cartoon-hopping and come up with some wild new characters to fill out your crowd instead of leaning on cameos from random WB movie properties, and this review would have read very differently. Retreading old ground is the least creative option, but one that is becoming more and more common in popular entertainment.\u00a0\u201cHey remember this?\u201d has replaced coming up with new ideas, and it\u2019s just so disappointing. There\u2019s a lot of potential in\u00a0<em>Space Jam: A New Legacy<\/em>, but it really just feels like a movie studio trying to remind us just how much of our nostalgia they own.<\/p>\n<p>When asked about scanning himself into the computer and joining all of the other IPs in the Warner Bros Universe, James shakes his head and gives a firm response.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis idea\u2019s just straight-up bad,\u201d he says. If only the people behind the cameras had listened.<\/p>\n<p>                            <strong>Cool Posts From Around the Web:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>                            <!-- \/post -->\n                        <\/div>\n<blockquote><p><strong><span style=\"color: #ff6600;\">If you liked the article, do not forget to share it with your friends. Follow us on\u00a0<span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><a style=\"color: #ff0000;\" href=\"https:\/\/news.google.com\/publications\/CAAqBwgKMLG0nwswvr63Aw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">Google News<\/a><\/span>\u00a0too, click on the star and choose us from your favorites.<\/span><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">For forums sites go to <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/forum.buradabiliyorum.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Forum.BuradaBiliyorum.Com<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>If you want to read more Like this articles, you can visit our <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/social-media\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Social Media category.<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"color: black;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.slashfilm.com\/space-jam-a-new-legacy-spoiler-review-theres-a-perfectly-decent-movie-buried-in-here-somewhere\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;#It Could&#8217;ve Been Worse \u2013 \/Film&#8221; Here\u2019s the thing: I tried with all of my might to give\u00a0Space Jam: A New Legacy\u00a0a fair shake. I was a nine-year-old obsessed with both Michael Jordan and the Looney Tunes when the first\u00a0Space Jam came out, and I loved it. I wanted to give the new sequel, starring\u00a0LeBron&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":302751,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/d13ezvd6yrslxm.cloudfront.net\/wp\/wp-content\/images\/spacejam-anewlegacy-tunes-closeup.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[1570,1361,1948],"class_list":["post-302750","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-social-mediaa","tag-features","tag-movies","tag-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302750","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=302750"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302750\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/302751"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=302750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=302750"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=302750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}