SPACE JAM

dMYD DVD

Starring Michael Jordan and Bugs Bunny

Trailer

M

Yeah, it’s all fun and elasticity as a child but come adultaggedon and here come the knives of critical acumen, stabbing bluntly at the grimacing corpse of Porky Pig as he squeals and stutters his last. Just think for a second; Space Jam is a biographical account of the latter-days of Michael Jordan’s professional career – with the Looney Tunes. In the cold light of the future the concept’s a mind-squeezingly demented fountain of Dadaism, like John Prescott writing his memoirs with the aid of Rocket Raccoon or Winona Ryder getting engaged to The Great Gonzo. Nostalgia runs a long way with this one, the Looney Tunes themselves being an unlikeable troupe of dated pop-references and annoying tics, whilst Jordan himself is a psychological dead-weight, as adept at reading lines as he was hitting a home run. Billy Murray arrives late-game to confuse matters, everything sags with a scarcity of animation and verve that Walt could scratch out of his left fingernail, and the whole thing is far less entertaining than it should be. Disney and Pixar are the only ones who’ve mastered the art of not relying on celebrities and quotations, and as such they’re a timeless evocation of childhood wonder and beauty. Warner Brothers were always a bunch of sarky, sulky lightweights smoking in the corner, ripping the piss but delivering little, and as such they don’t pass the timeless test. But hell… that concept. Michael Jordan in space, shooting hoops with Elmer Fudd. Stick it in the Congress Library, mount it on the walls; it’s a triumph of God-Only-Knows, with an execution that can’t possibly live up to the giddy heights of its own insanity.