Space Jam (1996) - ★

Director: Joe Pytka

Writers: Leo Benvenuti, Steve Rudnick, Timothy Harris, Herschel Weingrod (Screenplay).

Stars: Michael Jordan, Wayne Knight, Bill Murray, Theresa Randle

Space Jam is infamous for being one of the worst movies of all time. I thought, surely it can't be that bad? Usually with such ridiculous stories I find them to be 'so bad it's funny.' Not this time. Not with this monstrosity! This movie is so bad, that it's just plain terrible. I hate to sound like a wet blanket, but I couldn't even muster a smile throughout the entire movie! My favorite comedic actor of all time, Bill Murray couldn't even save it! I wanted so badly to find Space Jam enjoyable, but the complete lack of creativity and wit was its ultimate downfall. 

(Plus it's pretty apparent that the whole film was just a ruse to take money from silly Basketball fans and children.)
Here's the story: Michael Jordan has conquered Basketball and retires to become a Baseball player. Meanwhile, at Looney Toon Town (or something), all is not well with those lovable cartoon heroes. Aliens are going to kidnap them and use them for entertainment at a theme park on their home planet.... riiiight. Anyway, so the Toon's challenge the Aliens to basketball because the aliens are tiny, which drives the extra-terrestrial creatures to steal the talent of well known basketball players across the US. ... if the Toon's win they can stay on Earth. Anyway, the Looney Toons enlist Michael Jordan to play with them, and the rest of the film is history. 

Bill Murray at his lowest.

First of all: what was with the under-utilization of Marvin the Martian? That Toon was literally made for a space-themed feature film! He's one of my favorite Toon's of all time, so that disappointed me right there. Also, the voice of Bugs Bunny just sounded atrocious. Billy West is a talented voice actor, but he just can't mimic Mel Blanc. These are just some minor problems with the film. 

Michael Jordan has all the charisma of a teaspoon. This man can't act, but it's not like he was there to act anyway. He was there to draw in millions of basketball fans to fork out their cash. Jordan couldn't carry the film, not even with the help of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and Tweety. As a result of his lack of on-screen talent, every single joke involving him fell flat. Whenever he was on-screen, you could feel the nerves and awkwardness just reek off of him. I felt awkward just watching... please keep that man away from the cinema! 

What's worse! This is literally the least funniest thing the Looney Toon's have ever done. They're my childhood heroes who used to make me laugh non-stop for ages. In this, they're just dated, unintelligent and mostly annoying. In fact, I can't even pretend to be in a light-hearted mood anymore. Now I'm just angry. 

This is probably how they conceived the idea for Space Jam. 

"What will be our next box-office smash gentleman?"
"Let's get the hottest sports stars, the most popular cartoons of all time, and slap them together!"

"Gentleman, we're geniuses! You get the talent and the animators, we can worry about the story later!"  They then proceed to dance to the tune "We're in the money."

Michael Jordan... please stop! PLEASE.

Except they didn't worry about the story. Elementary school students can come up with a better story and wittier dialogue than these guys did! You know it's god-awful when even the Looney Toons can make me squirm in awkwardness. 

I could go on about the music, the crappy animation... lot's of things, but that would just be futile. It's movies like Space Jam that make me hate the cinema sometimes for their manipulative, greedy, and lazy ways. Michael Jordan has officially made it onto my "Sins against the cinema" list, and so has Space Jam. I wanted to like this movie, and ended up hating it more than almost every other movie I've ever seen.