LeBron’s ‘Space Jam’ Is Getting Ethered By Critics For Essentially Being A Giant Commercial

bad space jam reviews

Warner Bros.


Woof. I mean… who could’ve seen this one coming, huh?! Certainly not literally every single human being that doesn’t work at Warner Bros. — that’s who. Space Jam: A New Legacy was dead-on-arrival and everyone, except those who actually decided to make the movie, knew it from the moment it started to really come together back in 2018. Now, here we are three years later and the reviews/reactions to the “film” have hit the internet, and folks, they ain’t pretty.

I put “film” in quotations because the consensus amongst critics seems to be that Space Jam: A New Legacy is nothing more than a corporate-driven soulless cash grab that contains more shoehorned-in Warner Bros. intellectual property than it does actual plot points.

Critics aren’t loving Space Jam: A New Legacy

As things currently stand, Space Jam: A New Legacy holds a 39% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes, with many having a particular issue with just how blatant the attempt to jam-pack the film with other I.P. is.

New York Times: “Several jokes actually stick. But the purposeful sensory overload mostly yields head-spinning stupefaction, leaving a viewer feeling like Wile E. Coyote after hitting a mesa wall.”

Chicago-Sun Times: “I’ve never seen anything like it. I also hope to never see anything like it again, and I wish I could unsee what I HAVE seen.”

The Hollywood Reporter: “To whom this is meant to appeal is anyone’s guess, except presumably the studio’s marketing department.”

The Atlantic: “Space Jam: A New Legacy feels like a preview of a more terrifying, siloed future, one in which having an encyclopedic media library is more important than enjoying the work right in front of you.”

Hell, even the soundtrack is taking shots:

To be fair to LeBron, it’s not as though the original Space Jam was far from being a critical darling (44% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes), but at least that movie was about entertaining kids and not a mere $150 million marketing tool.

When and where you can watch Space Jam: A New Legacy

Space Jam: A New Legacy, which stars LeBron James and Don Cheadle as the villain Al-G Rhythm and features athletes such as Klay Thompson, Anthony Davis, Damian Lillard, Chris Paul, Kyle Kuzma, Diana Taurasi, Nneka Ogwumike, and Chiney Ogwumike, will hit theaters and HBO Max on Friday, July 16.

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