Early Reviews of ‘Space Jam: A New Legacy’ Are Not Amazing

It's been a quarter-century since Michael Jordan and the Tune Squad took on the Monstars. Twenty-five years later, LeBron James is suiting up with the Tune Squad, but most critics are wishing he stayed with the Lakers.

'Space Jam: A New Legacy' hits theaters and HBO Max today. A sequel to the original movie has been highly anticipated for years by multiple generations, but fans were split on whether they were excited for LeBron James to play the protagonist. Gone are the Monstars in the sequel, as LeBron and the Looney Tunes folks take on a "rogue artificial intelligence" and its Goon Squad in this iteration of the movie.

The early reviews are in, and as most would expect, they're not pretty.

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The New York Post's Jimmy Oleksinski made me laugh with his review:

"In the pantheon of misguided sequels and reboots, 'A New Legacy' is right up there with 'Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2' and 'Little Fockers.'" - Jimmy Oleksinski, NY Post

This was the nicest that Oleksinski got, as his headline on the New York Post called this movie an 'abomination'.

The movie checks in with a 36% total on Rotten Tomatoes, as well as a 3.6/10 from the Internet Movie Database, and a 40% total from Metacritic. It was described as an "apocalyptic horror movie" by another publication, and panned by many others. One of the more curious criticisms took aim at the movies lack of originality, alleging that the movie was more-or-less a remake of the old movie, with a slightly different villain, and a new lead. For a movie that has been in production since 2014, and racked up a $150 million total budget, I'm sure Warner Bros. was hoping for a bigger splash on opening weekend.

Hey, at least critics praised the animation! Maybe, we can all watch it on HBO Max, and on mute.

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Reviews aggregated through Google