As the saying goes — and feel free to insert your debauchery of choice — one milkshake is delicious. Two, three, perhaps even four, are taste bud nirvana.
But 762 milkshakes become … well … stale. Tedious. Sensory overload.
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| As a crowd of thousands watches and worries, LeBron James and a digitally upgraded Bugs Bunny wonder what unpleasant trick their revolting opponents will uncork next. |
Which is a shame, because — at its core — this film offers a sweet story about the need for fathers and sons to relate to each other.
Alas, no fewer than six credited writers — and, I’ve no doubt, many more uncredited hands — turned the result into the world’s most frantic pinball machine. Actually, “frantic” isn’t strong enough. Frenzied. Berserk. Freaked out. Zonkers.
Out of control.
Definitely out of director Malcolm D. Lee’s control.
Lee is best known for overblown, slapstick-laden farces such as Undercover Brother, Girls Trip and Night School, often with stand-up comics in lead roles. He doesn’t know from subtle, pacing, or restraint. He definitely graduated from the school of Throw Everything On The Wall And See What Sticks.
And boy, he found a lot to throw on this wall.
LeBron James, playing himself, has become a basketball taskmaster with sons Darius (Ceyair J Wright) and Dom (Cedric Joe). The elder Darius is cheerfully eager to follow in his father’s size 16 footsteps, but young Dom has his head in an entirely different game. His passion is coding and IT development; he even has built his own way-cool computer game.
Dad is oblivious, much to the chagrin of wife Kamiyah (Sonequa Martin-Green). Basketball is everything; anything else is a distraction.
Elsewhere, within the massive server bank at Warner Bros. Studios, an egomaniacal digi-villain dubbed Al G. Rhythm (Don Cheadle) has been up to no good. Hoping to win real-world adulation, Al has developed cutting-edge tech that could digitally incorporate LeBron into an endless array of media projects.
LeBron declines, during a presentation meeting with execs played by Sarah Silverman and Steven Yeun. Actually, LeBron calls the proposal monumentally stupid, which enrages Al — monitoring via Wifi-linked devices — into monumental revenge.
In the blink of an eye, LeBron and Dom are sucked into Al’s digital realm, where he seduces the impressionable lad with the thrill of being able to fabricate anything — instantly — while employing crocodile psychology to widen the rift between father and son.
LeBron, meanwhile, has been banished to Tune World, where he has been transformed into a Chuck Jones-esque tune, and given 24 hours to assemble a squad for the basketball game to end all basketball games.
(Sigh. How many times must we be reminded that you cannot trust an AI? We’ve known this lesson ever since 1968’s 2001: A Space Odyssey and 1970’s lesser-known — but no less disturbing — Colossus: The Forbin Project.)
Bugs Bunny remains Tune World’s sole inhabitant, all of his friends having been banished to other worlds by Al. Which gives the wascally wabbit the opportunity — once briefed by LeBron — to declare his signature phrase: “This means war!”
Off they go, in Marvin the Martian’s spaceship, seeking Bugs’ friends in all the other realms in the Warners Serververse.
Which is where this film spins outta control.
At a speed just this side of subliminal, we whisk through — and into — realms, lands and film clips as varied as The Matrix, Casablanca, Game of Thrones and the cartoon lands of Superman and Wonder Woman (the latter voiced by Gal Gadot, of course). And that’s just a taste; what follows involves scores — hundreds? — of pop-culture characters and references, all zipping past as rapidly as Lee and editor Bob Dusay can splice the action.
It’ll be a stop-frame fanatic’s dream come true, once this film hits home video; as a theatrical viewing experience, giddy delight quickly blossoms into a splitting headache. It’s impossible to take everything in, and that’s frustrating.
It gets even worse, once LeBron and Bugs’ team begins the game, facing off against an amped-up Dom and his “Goon Squad” of digitally enhanced, real-world super-ballers: The Brow (Anthony Davis), complete with bright blue wings; the snake-ified White Mamba (Diana Taurasi); elemental Wet/Fire (Klay Thompson); tarantula-ified Arachnneka (Nneka Ogwumike); and, as a later substitute, Chronos (Damien Lillard), who can manipulate time.
What chance do LeBron, Bugs and helpless hoopsters such as Elmer Fudd, Porky Pig, Granny and Tweetie Bird have against these monsters, even with the talented assistance of Lola Bunny? And if our heroes lose, Al will keep them trapped in the Serververse forever … along with the thousands of innocent, real-world folks who’ve been sucked into the audience, when they tuned into the game via their Smart phones.
Those hapless souls wind up mingling with a crowd that includes everybody from the Jetsons to Godzilla; the Joker to Yogi Bear; the Gremlins to the Iron Giant; the Flintstones to Pennywise the clown … all the Looney Tunes, Hanna Barbera and Warner Bros. characters going back to the year dot, plus hundreds of other pop-culture icons.
Along with the dozens and dozens of musical references in Kris Bowers’ similarly chaotic score.
Nor can we overlook hijacked game announcers Lil Rel Howery and Ernie Johnson, who offer plenty of droll color commentary (amid their rising nervous terror).
Many of this film’s one-liners and sight gags are funny; some are downright hilarious (particularly the nod to the first Space Jam’s Michael Jordan). On the other hand, a lot misses by a mile: most particularly, the rather vicious Goon Squad members, whose behavior and appearance seem much too scary and nasty for this film’s otherwise frivolous tone.
Granted, LeBron is a surprisingly engaging actor. His aghast incredulity is persuasive, during his initial arrival in the Serververse, and his quieter moments with young Cedric Joe are warm and heartfelt. It’s also refreshing to see Martin-Green do so well as a loving and protective wife and mother, as opposed to her absurdly stiff and mannered work in Star Trek: Discovery.
Even so, this Jam wears out its welcome long before the final buzzer.
Far too many milkshakes.
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