MOVIE REVIEW: "Space Jam" (1996)

Synopsis: Seeking to innovate the attractions of his amusement park (Moron Mountain), an ambitious and evil alien finds his new acquisition on planet Earth: Bugs Bunny and the Looney Tunes. In an attempt to do so, he sends a gang named Nerdlucks to kidnap them and make them slave workers.

One of the biggest challenges in any working movie based on a mix resulting from direct interaction between real and cartoon actors is how convincing this idea will be to the audience watching them. Here, this technique unfortunately did not work very well, but surprisingly, the end result is not so disastrous.

Under the pretext of using the world of basketball (especially sport as a sport in itself) and its players as the central connectors and the main thread of its narrative, the film finds in the competitiveness of the courts of this sport its starting point. The animated world finds in this part of the real world a way of projecting itself, and as absurd as it may seem, to make things happen in a way that flows almost "naturally."

The famous, charismatic and beloved animated characters of Warner Bros. are largely responsible for all this fun mess this movie is. As expected, they are the soul of the project and from the beginning, the story focuses on affirming and reaffirming them (without really having much of a need for it... after all, this is an obvious aspect) as very funny, insane and extremely funny figures who need the help of a human not to be "abducted" to another planet.

They find in Michael Jordan the solution to their problems and this dynamic between human and cartoon becomes the central argument of the narrative because Jordan now lives in a surreal world where anything can happen. By agreeing to help them, the basketball star has no idea of ​​the problem he is about to face. That's because the villains who proposed a basketball game as a final challenge (which will decide everyone's fate) have stolen the talents of other famous and skilled NBA players and are now in advantage.

The dynamics of the script play with the idea of ​​having a human in the midst of a multitude of cartoons for a good part of their time and this often works without major problems (by the way, this is one of the funniest points in the movie), the What starts to bother a bit is when the narrative cannot develop better by not using other devices and prefers to focus only on quick jokes of physical humor (which do not always work). Of course, when it comes to cartoons this would happen, but it need not be the central axis of the comic content.

On the other hand, all the anarchy (and I'm talking about a lot of anarchy) that surrounds the essence of these crazy characters and their acts ensures great nonsense moments and everything that is surreal becomes believable because it makes sense where it is happening. It is worth noting that using basketball as the stage of this show was a very assertive idea... I can not imagine another sport being used as well in this narrative as this.

Ironically, a weakening point is the presence of what would be one of the film's most compelling marketing elements, Michael Jordan himself... Who turns out to be a lousy actor (far worse than I could imagine). He plays acting himself, but can't really establish an interesting didactic with the drawings. Basically, he's extremely artificial in all his scenes and has very few good times.

This may be director Joe Pytka's failure to direct him better, but his mistake is not restricted to that alone, because during the projection of the film one notices how much he gets lost in how he wants to show it. the movie for the viewer. There is some confusion in his work and the weight of the balance in the narrative is out of place, but it is not all bad because it achieves its ultimate goal: to entertain the people who are watching it.

Space Jam invests in a good production, has very interesting technical requirements for a movie of this genre (highlighting the digital effects and the soundtrack) and despite the regrets, it is worth watching for the sole purpose of entertainment without aspiration. It's not as great as it could be, but it's not such a bad movie to be ignored.