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This 30-year output brings us the most amazing 90s pop-cultural detritus imaginable, at once shocking and familiar – not least on his rendition of his song I Believe I Can Fly by R Kelly, the shameless singer. he is currently serving 20 years in prison for child molestation. Space Jam is an action/cartoon hybrid and a nude commercial collaboration between NBA star Michael Jordan and Warner Bros. stable of Looney Tunes characters such as Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd; this was created from a TV commercial where Jordan was paired with a scary rabbit.
The idea is that an evil species of space aliens have captured the Looney Tunes and plan to enslave them, but playfully agree not to if Bugs and the gang can beat them at basketball. These villains use their evil mojo to give themselves an unfair advantage, stealing basketball skills from other NBA superstars like Charles Barkley, before turning them into humanoids. So the Looney Tunes heroes and heroines approach Jordan (who has now switched from basketball to baseball, a sport that doesn’t seem to be good at all) and asks for his help. So Space Jam accidentally fits the template of the underdog game: a top player, who has fallen into trouble, has to coach a group of lovable losers.
This over-the-top concept is kept straight by the excellent performance of Wayne Knight (Newman from TV’s Seinfeld), playing Jordan’s nerdy beta-assistant, and backing vocalist from. Bill Murrayhe’s channeling his Caddyshack powers; Murray stares at the screen with joy as the team’s unlikely savior, perfectly combining his visuals with the characters. To me, the film is only funny at times when the characters are shown to be small compared to Jordan, but most of the time his character is manipulated to look his size. There’s never been a movie that’s honestly made to sell, but it has an appeal to the past.
