{"id":22954,"date":"2016-11-02T05:02:08","date_gmt":"2016-11-02T09:02:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=22954"},"modified":"2016-11-02T04:14:24","modified_gmt":"2016-11-02T08:14:24","slug":"space-jam-1996","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2016\/11\/02\/space-jam-1996\/","title":{"rendered":"Space Jam (1996)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"spacejam\"<\/a>IN SELECT THEATERS —<\/strong> If you haven\u2019t had a massive amount of nostalgia to frame the memories for \u201cSpace Jam<\/a>,\u201d then odds are you won\u2019t really enjoy the mix of Michael Jordan, The Looney Tunes, and Bill Murray, for some reason. Without the nostalgia, \u201cSpace Jam\u201d is just a mediocre animated comedy that is made by a committee, and used to boast the waning popularity of Michael Jordan and the Looney Tunes. There\u2019s also Bill Murray for some reason. Back in the mid nineties, Michael Jordan was sports royalty and was playing baseball professionally; someone had the bright idea to give him a movie co-starring timeless cartoon characters because that\u2019s how stuff works. For all its faults (and there are a lot of them) \u201cSpace Jam\u201d is a perfect storm of urban appeal, and family appeal that managed to make it a veritable marketing juggernaut in 1996.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

It had a wonderful merchandise line, an excellent soundtrack that accompanied it and a lot of popularity with kids growing up in that period. Jordan was still king (he danced with Michael Jackson!) and the Looney Tunes were very appealing, even in that time where Warner was looking for any reason to revive them. There\u2019s also Bill Murray for some reason. Hell even I<\/em><\/strong> was caught up in the storm, consuming the toys and the ace soundtrack on CD. \u201cSpace Jam\u201d is one half a promotional tool for Michael Jordan and one half an animated adventure with the Looney Tunes. After working hard to obtain god-like status as a sports star, Michael Jordan is called upon by the Looney Tunes to help them and keep them from being destroyed by aliens named the Nerdlucks. The Nerdlucks are a group of small alien beings who want to kidnap the Looney tunes and make them perform in an amusement park in space.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s an odd bit of commentary on corporate greed in a movie that was practically built by a group of tightly suited CEO\u2019s but hey, I digress. When Michael Jordan agrees to help the Looney Tunes and refuses to be pushed around by them, the Nerdlucks change their plans by insisting Jordan and the Toons play an all stakes basketball game against them. If they lose, the Toons along with Jordan and have to spend eternity in the space amusement park performing for tourists. Little do they know the Nerdlucks steal the talent of a bunch of NBA all-stars, turning them in to monstrous, large, and very talented basketball playing beings known as the Monstars, that even Jordan is intimidated by. Beyond that, there isn\u2019t much of a plot save for a lot of pandering to sports fans and a broader audience. The first half hour of the movie is Jordan\u2019s life story, and the Toons even get to meet his fictional movie family.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s also the introduction of truly awful Looney Tunes character Lola Bunny, a sexualized female clone of Bugs who is obviously injected to sell more toys. Beyond that, \u201cSpace Jam\u201d is still an entertaining if surreal meeting of big nineties entities. There\u2019s Looney Tunes, Michael Jordan, the NBA, Wayne Knight from \u201cSeinfeld,\u201d and yes, Bill Murray for some reason. Sans nostalgia it\u2019s serviceable kids\u2019 entertainment at best with a paper thin plot, but a lot of Looney Tunes antics.<\/p>\n

Will be re-released for its 20th<\/sup> Anniversary on November 13th and 16th <\/strong>in more than 450 theaters across the U.S. Look for showtimes on<\/em> Fathom Events<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

IN SELECT THEATERS — If you haven\u2019t had a massive amount of nostalgia to frame the memories for \u201cSpace Jam,\u201d then odds are you won\u2019t really enjoy the mix of Michael Jordan, The Looney Tunes, and Bill Murray, for some reason. Without the nostalgia, \u201cSpace Jam\u201d is just a mediocre animated comedy that is made […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[58,64,71,88,99,136,167,219,340,580,610,906,974],"class_list":["post-22954","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movie-reviews","tag-action","tag-adaptation","tag-adventure","tag-aliens","tag-animation","tag-bill-murray","tag-bugs-bunny","tag-comedy","tag-family","tag-kids","tag-looney-tunes","tag-science-fiction","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22954","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22954"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22954\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22958,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22954\/revisions\/22958"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}