Although at first glance it looks like a movie dreamed up by a marketing committee (and in some respects it probably was), Space Jam actually defies the odds against it to become a dazzling display of family entertainment. There's a kind of demented genius to the idea of casting NBA superstar Michael Jordan in a live-action and animated movie co-starring the beloved characters from Warner Bros' Looney Tunes cartoons. They play off each other like seasoned veterans of vaudeville, and Jordan never falls into the kind of awkward, amateurish showmanship that you might expect from a sports idol. He's comfortable in the cartoon land of his co-stars, who include Bugs Bunny and sexy newcomer Lola Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Elmer Fudd, Sylvester & Tweety, Speedy Gonzalez, the Tazmanian Devil, Foghorn Leghorn, and Yosemite Sam. They've all been hijacked to an outer-space amusement park run by the Nerdlucks, who strike a Faustian bargain with the Warners' heroes: if Bugs and Co. can defeat the Nerdluck "Monstars" in a basketball game, they'll win back their freedom; if they lose, they'll be doomed to stay there forever as enslaved entertainers. So they kidnap Jordan as their coach and "secret weapon" while the nefarious Nerdlucks suck out the basketball skills from such stellar victims as Charles Barkley and Patrick Ewing. It all leads to reckless abandon on the basketball court, and Bill Murray pops in for some hilarious support. Combining traditional animation and computer-generated Nerdlucks with its live-action cast, Space Jam was made in the anarchic spirit of the original cartoons, where anything goes as long as it's funny and off-the-wall (or the ceiling, or the door, or the floor...). Technically astounding, it's also witty enough to entertain adults and kids alike. --Jeff Shannon, Amazon.com
With a story that's too flimsy to support its running time, this road-mo vie comedy has plenty of problems, but at its best it's a surprisingly inspired vehicle for the clever teaming of Tim Robbins and Martin Lawrence. Robbins plays an addled advertising executive who comes home early one day and discovers his wife in bed with his boss. To make matters worse, he's later carjacked by a struggling, unemployed family-man-turned-petty-thief (Lawrence), and that's when he loses his cool completely. He takes the carjacker hostage and recruits him on a road-trip scheme of revenge against his wife and boss. Plotting to break into his boss' high-security vault, Robbins gets a criminal assist from Lawrence, but they're also on the run from another pair of would-be thieves who trail them to the vault's location. The routine plot of Nothing To Lose is occasionally limp and sluggish, but writer-director Steve Oedekerk (who makes a wacky cameo appearance as a security guard) mines comedy gold during several scenes that detour from the plot for the sake of sheer lunacy. Robbins and Lawrence have great comedic chemistry (if you can tolerate Lawrence's constant profanity), and although the movie ends on a false note with some unlikely turns of fate, it's definitely good for more than a few solid laughs. --Jeff Shannon, Amazon.com
NBA star Michael Jordan teams up with Bugs Bunny and the rest of his pals in a basketball game that is more important than any that has ever come before - the fate of the Earth hangs on the result. The problem has arisen because an invading alien race, the Nerclucks, want to kidnap Bugs and the rest of the Looney Tunes and use them as a tourist attraction on Moron Mountain. Bill Murray also stars in this live-action and animated mix. Special Features Commentary by Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and Director Joe Pytka Featurette Jammin' with Bugs Bunny and Michael Jordan 2 Music Videos: Seal's Fly like an Eagle and the Movie Cast's Monstars Anthem Hit 'Em High Theatrical Trailer
Not enough people went to see True Crime in cinemas. Wasn't Clint Eastwood too old to be playing a guy who a variety of glorious women, from the middle-aged Diane Venora and Laila Robins to the young Mary McCormack and Lucy Liu, find attractive? Could the onetime Man with No Name credibly play a brilliant crime reporter, Steve Everett, with an ironic turn of phrase and an incurable habit of screwing up both his personal and professional lives? The respective answers to those questions are: hell no and hell yes. True Crime features one of Eastwood's best and most entertaining performances--and his work as director is utterly assured. The story (from Andrew Klavan's bestselling novel) gives Everett the last-minute assignment of interviewing a condemned man (Isaiah Washington) on the eve of his execution. The prisoner, a born-again Christian and exemplary family man, has everything the reporter lacks except a shot at seeing the next sunrise. Everett sets out to get him that, yet far from making a beeline to the exculpatory evidence that will save the life of his "client," this very tarnished hero has to spend a lot of the next 24 hours contending with the baggage he's accumulated through drinking, wenching and familial neglect. (A Pirandellian note: Everett's daughter is played by Eastwood's own daughter, Francesca Fisher-Eastwood, and her mother, Frances Fisher, returns for a feisty cameo as a prosecutor.) This is a good one that got away. Don't let it happen again. --Richard T Jameson
His Airness and His Hareness; what a team! Michael Jordon slams Bugs Bunny jams and a cavalcade of Looney Tunes and NBA stars hoop it up in the rim-rattlin out of this world roundball romp: Space Jam.
Michael Jordan slams, Bugs Bunny jams and the Looney Tunes starts hoop it up in the rim-rattin' roundball romp that's one of the funniest animation/ live action capers ever made. Jokes fly as the Tune Squad takes on the Nerdlucks in a hard-court game to decide if the Looney Tunes remain here...or become attractions at a far-off galactic off-ramp called Moron Mountain. The Nerdlucks have a monstrous secret weapon: they've stolen the skills of the top NBA stars like Charles Barkley and Patric Ewing and have become Monstars. But the Tune Squad's secret weapon happens to be the finest player in this or any other universe. He's outta this world. So's the fun. Special Features: Commentary by Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and Director Joe Pytka; Featurette Jmmin' with Bugs Bunny and Michael Jordan; 2 Music Videos: Seal's Fly like an Eagle and the Movie Cast's Monstars Anthem Hit 'Em High Theatrical Trailer.
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