Space Jam

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I thought for the month of June I might take a look back on a few movies I remember absolutely loving at the time they were released. However, over the years, they have all been seen in some sort of negative light by others. Is the nostalgia enough to save these movies? Will I find something I like even more? Will I end up going from love to hate? Let's start with perhaps my biggest curiosity on this - 'Space Jam'.

The story (real quick if you're one of the few people who don't know) involves a handful of aliens from an amusement park planet called Moron Mountain, coming to Earth to kidnap the Looney Tunes in order to make them the park's main attraction. The Tunes, going for an easy win, challenge the little aliens to a basketball game. But when the aliens end up stealing the abilities of some of the NBA's best players, the Tunes turn to Michael Jordan - widely known as the greatest basketball player of all time, for help.

Cards on the table, this movie had damn near perfect timing for yours truly. It came along when I was 14, perhaps my most tender age in life. I had just barely started falling out of my interest of basketball for some reason, made even weirder by the fact that the Toronto Raptors - my would-be home team were founded the previous year. I was also just stepping into high school, and going through the phase of somewhat "properly" growing up. Things like 'Power Rangers' were things I couldn't be bothered with, and cartoons were more of an elementary school thing. There was now officially "kids stuff" and "grown-up stuff".

Now, imagine having that state of mind when a movie about some of my favorite cartoon characters teaming up with Michael Jordan came along. At the time, this was a movie that, for me, stood as my last lingering thread of childhood. It was like this crazy "last hoorah" of sorts, and might... might be my first does of what nostalgia felt like - even if it was recent nostalgia. Fast-forward to today, and many still see it as a nostalgic gem of the 90's despite anything critics have to say about it. As for me, this viewing was my first time around since my obsession with it back in '96/'97. I had the soundtrack (by the way, the 'Monstars Anthem' is STILL amazing, I don't care what anyone says), I had a white clamshell VHS copy of it, and I drove my poor big brother batshit crazy with it.

Enough time had passed that I had forgotten a lot of it, but retained about half of it. Would it suck me back into the late 90s, having the same nostalgic effect if not more powerful? Or would I come to see it as the pile of junk it actually is... I am somewhat saddened to say that I lean more towards the latter, and finally realize what some people were talking about that whole time. All things considered, I'm sorry, but this is a bad movie.

The acting from the NBA pros is pretty brutal, the jokes don't tend to really land in any sort of good way, and they made a sex symbol out of a flesh-toned rabbit. By the way, the new 'Looney Tunes' show has a much, much better version of her, voiced by Kristen Wiig. This film literally threw her in as furry eye candy under the guise of a "hear me roar" woman. Basically, she was the best basketball player on the squad other than Jordan, but that's as far as things go with her. On top of all that, it's just badly written, the pacing's off, and I kinda wonder what it is I ever saw in it.

However, before the fans get their pitchforks and torches ready, I DO have some good to say about it. While it is recognizably bad, I can't help but get that nostalgic twinge that a lot of present-day fans get when watching it. Again, this represented a very interesting point in time of my life when I was growing up, and I'll never deny my overall obsession with it at the time. It was also just cool to see some of our athletic heroes of the time on the big screen, including Tyrone "Muggsy" Bogues, who was always my personal favorite due to his speed and being able to elate to his short height.

Adding to that, think about the crap we put up with nowadays so readily. Speaking for myself, there are a lot of titles out there that I wanna se just because the whole concept is absolutely ridiculous. Well, here we have the Looney Tunes recruiting Michael Jordan to win a basketball game against a bunch of space aliens. I'm telling you right now that if I was brand new to this concept, I would be all over it. Granted, it would be for different reasons, but I can certainly see people enjoying this because it's just that silly.

There have been several titles I've looked back on and ended up hating compared to my love of them in my youth - perhaps the biggest culprit being 'TMNT III'. But this did not hit me that way. I somehow recognized it as the crap-fest it was, but at the same time, I watched it with a smile on my face the whole time. It was kinda like looking at a bad yearbook picture - it's a mess, but it's remembered fondly. If it's on your list of great nostalgic gems, I can completely understand. For me, it fits somewhere with 'TMNT II' or 'Ghostbusters II', I can still enjoy it... even if I have a lot of cringing to do while I'm going through it.

​2/5

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