In truth, I actually sort of wanted to put it higher, given how much fun I had watching it in the theater with my kids, but the extraordinarily negative response to it had already gotten to me.
That negative response now has been etched in permanency with its four Golden Raspberry nominations announced earlier this week, including worst picture.
The other three: worst actor (LeBron James), worst remake, ripoff or sequel and worst screen couple (James and any Warner Cartoon character).
The nomination for James is especially surprising, since I thought people at least acknowledged he's a better actor than Michael Jordan.
How much different of a movie did I see than everyone else saw?
I was so taken with the movie, and James in particular, that I wrote a whole post about how the film prompted me to reconsider my stance on James as a cultural icon. Whereas I always hated him for his switching of teams, which was announced in the most self-aggrandizing manner possible, and most recently, his joining of -- and bringing a championship to -- the Los Angeles Lakers, I now considered the possibility that I may actually like him.
For everyone else, Space Jam made them stop liking LeBron James, or hate him even more than they used to.
I don't get it.
It's a fun movie, or at worst, an innocuous one. It takes familiar cinematic tropes about fathers and sons and tries to at least do right by them. And it has some good visual effects, some cheeky (and I believe intentional) references to the usage of intellectual property, and a really winning comedic turn by James, who actually does well in the sentimental moments as well.
But those in charge of the Razzies appear to believe they are tapping into the zeitgeist in their multiple nominations for Space Jam: A New Legacy, as these awards are designed to indict movies that are particularly terrible, that we all know are terrible, and whose very terribleness makes us laugh.
(There may be something to the zeitgeist dislike of the movie, or at least further evidence of it. Trey Parker and Matt Stone also dropped in casual rips of it in their two South Park COVID specials released at the end of last year, which I just finished watching.)
The even funnier thing -- or maybe I should say bemusing, or maybe I should say infuriating -- is that they usually only devote one or two spots to a big tentpole movie that comically underperformed from a critical perspective. Many of the nominees are actually not movies that are in the zeitgeist. The movie Karen, which trailed Diana: The Musical for the second most nominations with five, and the thrice-nominated The Misfits are not movies I have even heard of. And I hear of a lot more movies than the average person.
So of all the genuinely ill-conceived and cynical "remakes, ripoffs or sequels" that come out every year, this is the one they chose to pile on? This is the one they broadsided with the collective weight of their comedic power?
Like I said, I don't get it.
I did have a 2021 movie that would have slotted right in to the categories in which Space Jam was nominated, which was my #170 of 2021, The Matrix Resurrections. That was at the 0th percentile of my rankings. I could make arguments for Keanu Reeves as worst actor, for Reeves and Carrie-Anne Moss as worst on-screen couple, easily for worst remake, ripoff or sequel, and certainly for worst picture. I mean, it was my own worst picture of the year.
But I guess when you are out of sync with popular opinion, as every critic is at one point or another, it shows up in multiple films, not just the one.
If you can honestly say you had a better time with Matrix Resurrections than with Space Jam, you're definitely out of sync with me.
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