Children will clearly enjoy Space Jam due to its familiar cartoon characters and straightforward good vs. evil plot. That's a fact. Space Jam will no doubt have a long life on the shelves of video rentals and will probably be a popular fixture on Cable T V for years to come. The film is good clean fun, and refreshingly nonpretentious kids' entertainment. Let your kids enjoy the movie. Whether you will enjoy it or not is another matter entirely.
Michael Jordan can act, and has a far more confident screen presence than felllow NBAer Shaq. His interactions with cartoon characters nicely recall the work of Bob Hoskins in Who Framed Roger Rabbit? But Space Jam is not really a vehicle for acting. In fact, there are times when it doesn't even seem to be a movie. There are many moments when the movie seems like an overlong sneaker or McDonald's commercial. Given the current cross-pollination of Looney Tunes with the NBA, sneaker companies, R & B music and McDonald's, one can't be sure exactly what the Looneys are advertising, save for Space Jam merchandise.
Perhaps it isn't ironic that the well-received commercials which led up to Space Jam are far more entertaining than the film itself. The fast food and sneaker commercials are each under a minute long, much closer in running time to the classic Warners cartoons than a feature film. In Roger Rabbit the Looneys had cameos, but here they are expected to carry the story. (Warners had previously released feature-length films that were essentially compilations of old short subjects coupled with a flimsy new plotline.)Bugs, Daffy, and the rest of the Looney Tunes were designed as short subject characters and putting them in extended roles in feature films may be stretching it too far. The same is true for the newer characters, which include Lola Bunny, a rabbit version of Jessica Rabbit, and a motley assortment of alien basketball players.(Given the merchandising blitz surrounding Lola, one is surprised that Warners didn't spin her off onto a role in one of their Saturday morning shows)
The film's special effects are easily on a par with Roger Rabbit as is the animation. Space Jam, however, does not have the internal logic that made Roger so appealing. The concept of a Toontown segregated from the Hollywood of the 1940s and casting cartoon stars such as Donald and Daffy as cartoon "actors" explains the human/cartoon interaction very well. Simply plopping the Loons in a netherworld below our surface doesn't have any logic at all, because the evil aliens from space are also Toons! (The film never explains Marvin the Martian's presence among the Loons, btw). All animated films require a certain suspension of disbelief, and that suspension isn't any easier if the audience isn't given a reason to take the cartoon events seriously.
The classic Warners characters are amazingly durable and sturdy creations. They've outlasted their original animators and directors, and survived the limited animation treatment in such TV shows as Tiny Toons. They've dominated the Saturday morning ratings wars. And much to the delight of many at Warners, they've been consistant at moving merchandise. Perhaps the success of Space Jam will encourage Warners to produce theatrical cartoons again on a larger scale (a handful of new Warners cartoons have been released to theaters over the past decade). If so, Bugs and the gang would be returning to their home turf in brand new adventures. Bugs and the other Loons were simply unstoppable as short subject characters, and their return to the silver screen would probably absolve Space Jam. Wabbit hunters beware.
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