Rage4Media #85 - Space Jam: A New Legacy (4Media Reviews 8th Anniversary)

It’s been a full year since I last did a rage review. Am I becoming a calmer and more rational person? No, I’m just very busy and don’t have the time to invest in longer reviews, especially since I’m instead doing longer series retrospectives as well. Hence the more erratic schedule of late for which I apologise. That and I choose to reserve my anger for media that really deserves it.

Yes, you will do nicely.

In spite of the fact that Disney owns… almost everything under the sun they’ve shown some restraint when it comes to self-indulgent crossovers. Not to say they’re non-existent, there’s a whole Simpson’s Marvel Crossover and the Ducktales Reboot has references to all the Disney afternoon cartoons, oh and there’s some minor references in Free Guy, but nothing quite at the same spectacle as having say a whole bunch of their properties show up in Lego form. [Editors note: This was written before the Chip and Dale movie came out]

When it comes to self-indulgent crossovers, Warner Brothers is King. The Lego Movie and its sequel are prime examples of the kind of thing I’m talking about, it’s not surprising they were the ones who did the adaptation of Ready: Player One. A story built on the premise of a self-indulgent crossover. But of all the self-indulgent crossovers, none are as big or as self-indulgent as… wait, Space Jam 2?

There have been attempts to get a sequel to Space Jam off the ground since the first one’s success. It was announced in the 2010s that a new basketball super-star LeBron James would be the basketballer in the film. But what really kicked off production for the film was the launch of the streaming service HBOMax. A Streaming service that holds most of the Warner Brothers films.

The original Space Jam was a feature length version of a shoe commercial, so the idea was formed to make a feature length HBOMax commercial for its sequel. Or at least that’s how I envision it was conceived. I can’t imagine it was because they thought they could make an entertaining movie from this idea.

So how bad is this film? Well, let’s take a look.

Comic Book Lucky Dip - Doctor Aphra #7 (2017)

For a while now, I’ve wanted to get back to doing more regular comic reviews, but the issue has always been one of schedule slippage. I tend to do reviews months in advance and that wasn’t really compatible with the 4-issue test format which intended to always come out before the 5^th issue. So we’re trying something a bit different. I have a sizeable collection of comic books at my disposal, so I’m gonna pick one at random and do a recap-review of it. One of the aspects I’ll critique is how easy it is to pick up and read as an individual issue, I will not be recapping any part of the story not contained within the issue. As the late great Stan Lee once said, every comic is someone’s first.

So, what came out of my bookshelf today: Doctor Aphra #7, part 3 of the Screaming Citadel crossover arc. Written by Kieron Gillen, with art by Andrea Broccardo and colours done by Antonio Fabela. Released in July 2017 by Marvel comics.

Praise4Media - Jumanji: The Next Level

Welcome to Jumanji, again

Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle was a massive hit for Sony, moreso even than the original adaptation, a sequel was greenlit but rather than alter the formula drastically they decide to stick with the core cast. I guess we’re still more of a video game society when it comes to games and we haven’t really evolved past it yet... Jumanji VR, now there’s a horrifying idea for a sequel.

Anyway, released in 2019, the film was another box office success, raking in $800m on its $132m budget. A 71% and 87% Rotten Tomatoes rating with Critics and Audiences respectively also speaks to the film’s merit. But it’s been a couple of years now, let’s dive into the film and see if it holds up under scrutiny.