Review: Space Jam: A New Legacy

With me being in that same generation that was brought up on the original 'Space Jam', I feel this review could count more than ones that weren't.

My first memory of seeing the 1996 predecessor was at school where the teachers did one of their few film screenings in our assembly room. One of them was 'Space Jam' and I remember having a blast watching this with the perfect target audience.

What made it work was that it had that vintage Looney Tunes style of humor, frenetic pacing, a functional underdog story with cool pop culture references for all ages and Michael Jordan doing a better acting job than expected.

After that, it's popularity has grown over the years as my generation has grown older and voiced our opinion of our childhood classics that deserve a sequel within social media.

When I heard this was now in the works, I was naturally excited. But with LeBron James as the star this time, I was a bit unsure as how this would go due to him not being an actor. To keep my hopes up,  just kept saying to myself "if MJ can make it work, King James can". With updated technology, I knew this had the potential of being a success.

Well it's safe to say it got off to a rough start. It was cool seeing them doing a similar opening credits to the original. But outside of that, I was fearing I could be experiencing a disaster. This was due to the early signs of the story's themes being highly familiar and simple in its execution, the introduction of the villain being pretty poor with Don Cheadle just 'hamming' it up and knowing exactly what type of film he is part of and most importantly, LeBron James could not act.

To add to my fears was the shocking amount of shameless plugging of other properties Warner Bros. own within this film. It felt desperate and lazy on the writing aspect. It looked like the studio was trying to show the audience how cool and current they still are by combining all of their properties and making it look like a poor man's Ready Player One. I must confess, they did create some cool franchise cross-over moments which I am a sucker for.

Thankfully, there was something to fall back once we get into the Looney Tunes side of the story. The animation style was a nice mix of classic and current, most of the visual and written gags felt like vintage Toons and there were nice moments paying homage to some classic Looney Tunes moments of the past to please the fans.

While there were still the same problems from before and the duration started to drag, various parts of the film were keeping me entertained. Such as how they did the Basketball, making it more arcade like in its format.

I'm sad to say that the acting was not that good. LeBron James' performance made me appreciate Michael Jordan's a lot more. As mentioned before, Cheadle was just there for the paycheck and came nowhere to near to Danny Devito's efforts as the villain. Outside of the solid voicework for the Toons characters, Cedric Joe was the only acting positive who was pretty decent for what he was given. Sadly, there was no Bill Murray or Wayne Knight scene-stealing moments from the supporting cast.

The films biggest strength was probably the visual effects. While it wasn't the complete package and it took over the imagery a bit too much, they enhanced certain aspects that the original never could and was great to see. 

I have to give a negative to the costume design, which I was not expecting to do beforehand. It is solely to do with the goings on in the third act. There are a lot of extras that are supposed to be iconic characters from various WB platforms. But the quality of the costumes felt like I was watching a fancy dress party or one of those terrible parody movies from the early 2000's such as Epic Movie or Disaster Movie.

It's definitely not a disaster. There is enough fun and entertainment to make it ok viewing. But I cannot give it a pass I'm afraid. I feel the kids will enjoy this more than the adults. However, I can see this being forgotten quite quickly after seeing it. It's 30mins longer than the original, and I felt every minute of those 30. It did not need to be that long at all.

I was disappointed to see this being a glorified advert about Warner Bros. There was enough material for a it to be it's own thing. For me, what made the original Space Jam a success was that while it came across as crazy and silly. It was coherent and super fun with a comedy style that has been winning audiences over for decades. Stick to the original or go back to the old cartoons.

Rating: 6/10

Review: The Croods: A New Age

It is a strange time to have a sequel to The Croods. It has been eight years since the original got released and I remember it being a solid success both financially and critically.

So I am quite confused as to why it has taken this long for a sequel to arrive.

A lot of people like myself have almost forgotten how enjoyable the first one was.

I remember being surprised how much I liked it. Big positives was the strong family chemistry, the strength of the gags and the pleasing visuals.

I'm happy to say that it was as if they had never left and it was more of the same. 

The opening few minutes felt like a nice reminder of the world and characters that we saw back in 2013. Once that had been covered, I felt pretty comfortable and now along for the ride. I had forgotten how frantic the pacing can get and how fluid the style was. The story was solid enough, the characters all having their time to shine with solid development, the gags were consistently funny and well spread out across the duration and the visuals were bright, colourful, amazing detailed and could well be the films biggest positive. With the added camerawork diving through and sweeping across landscapes, they showed off their visual designs with great confidence.

All the voicework has a stellar cast and all worked well. Nicolas Cage continues to show how great of a voice he has for voice acting, Emma Stone gave a lot of energy to her character, Ryan Reynolds and Kelly Marie Tran had good comradery and Peter Dinklage and Leslie Mann contributed well.

There weren't any major negatives. I was to be picky, the strong I think could have been stronger. It was a perfectly functional one. But if it wouldn't to be great rather than good, there was certainly room for improvement with the depth of the plot.

That being said, I was pretty entertained by it and I think it was as good as the first one. It's a fun watch from start to finish and you'll be smiling when leaving the screen. As mentioned before, the visuals are pleasing to the eye, the gags are solid and not just aimed for the kids.

With both films being entertaining and rewarding viewings, it will be interesting if they go for a third installment. I certainly would not object to another family adventure.

Rating: 7/10

Review: Black Widow

It seems almost a lifetime ago since we had a film released that is part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

With the pandemic pushing many things back, this gave many fans of this franchise time to reflect and revisit one of the most celebrated film series of the last decade. It also saw people checking this universe out for the first time during that period.

Now that many people have caught up, we now have a new addition that has been demanded by many demographics for some time. Given how the central character ended up in Avengers: Endgame, I was intrigued to see when this feature would be set and how it would expand the world and which plot strand would it expand on.

While I felt fairly entertained and satisfied by it, it is a bit of a comedown after what felt like a monumental culmination of twelve years of work in 2019. The story does expand on the central character, and the opening scene certainly sets the tone for a more distressing one. After that, I felt like I was watching something closer to a Jason Bourne film than an MCU film.

Given the character and their background, I should expect all of what I've said. But as the MCU is kind of family orientated, I cannot see this being an accessible film for the younger audience. There is little superhero/fantasy action and instead it's more a solid spy thriller with hints of superhero connections.

For older viewers, I feel this will get a decent reception. But I fear it may be ranked towards the bottom of the franchise with Iron Man 2 and Thor: The Dark World. That does not deem it a bad film in my book. It just won't fell as memorable as many of its predecessors. The story is a solid one, the characters and action kept my attention, the visual effects continue to showcase the improvement in the technology and look evermore seamless and the score by Lorne Balfe fits the setting perfectly.

The cast is pretty stellar and they all did a good job in my view. Scarlett Johansson carried the film as the lead and can still kick some serious ass with some high quality physical acting. I was so happy to see Florence Pugh now part of the MCU as I am a big fan of hers. I felt she had believable chemistry with Johansson and never felt out of place. David Harbour was a nice surprise and gave us a memorable character with an interesting backstory that I hope gets expanded on somewhere.

Rachel Weisz was perfectly fine in her role and supported her colleagues well when needed. While there was a questionable Russian accent coming from Ray Winstone, it was consistent which I do appreciate. His role as a villain was as you would expect with most MCU villains.

I also have to give credit to O-T Fagbenle who was a nice bit of comedic relief and Olga Kurylenko who I always enjoy in a film, no matter how underused.

Notable issues I had with the film was that there were pacing issues in the second half that I felt made the film drag. Seeing the duration being a surprising 2hrs 13mins, this should not have been any longer than 2hrs given the amount of content it provided. Another was an aspect of the MCU that it usually does well in that makes highly enjoyable viewing, the comedy. There are those vintage gags in this feature. But none felt memorable and some did not stick for me.

Overall, it is a perfectly fine piece of entertainment. I was never bored by it. But I fear this may end up being one of my least re-watched instalments within the franchise in the future. There is very little in the action and story that made me want to instantly see this again. But as I was watching it, there was enough for me to give it a pass as it never felt like a wasted journey to the cinema. Given the long wait since the last one, most people are probably hoping for a big re-introduction. I don't feel we got it with this one. But it was nice to see some added backstory to a celebrated character.

I must mention that there is the usual post-credit scene and I was pleased with myself that I got the location of the scene correct. The content was a nice little set-up and teaser to one of the studios upcoming projects that I hope succeeds.

Rating: 7/10