As much as I love “Looney Tunes”, I didn’t care much for the original 1996 “Space Jam”. Now, here comes “Space Jam: A New Legacy”, which swaps Michael Jordan out for LeBron James. The first “Space Jam” was underwhelming but this is a total mess. “A New Legacy” is trying to be a dozen different things at once and it ends up feeling very unoriginal.

Basketball star LeBron James gets transported inside a virtual reality based on various Warner Bros. properties (“Harry Potter”, DC superheroes, “Wizard Of Oz” etc…) by the evil computer algorithm Al G. Rhythm (Don Cheadle “Hotel Rwanda”), who has kidnapped LeBron’s son. Now, LeBron must team up with the Looney Tunes to win a basketball game with crazy videogame rules so he can save his child.

LeBron James is just absolutely awful. If you thought Michael Jordan was wooden in the first “Space Jam”, LeBron James is like a forest. Don Cheadle is cringeworthy as the villain. It takes way too long before the Looney Tunes appear. There’s so much else going on, they feel like an afterthought. However, the animation (both 2D and 3D) for them is good. Keep an eye out for cameos from King Kong, the Flintstones, Iron Giant, Pennywise, Space Ghost, Batman, The Mask and even the droogs from “A Clockwork Orange”.

The plot is merely a mix of the original “Space Jam”, “Ready Player One” and “Tron” so it’s not remotely original. The performances from James and Cheadle are just terrible. Also, there are just so many references to other films including “The Matrix”, “Mad Max”, “Austin Powers”, “Training Day” and I doubt any young kid will have seen half of the films referenced. It also feels like a big ad for gaming tech and E3. This is a total mess and it completely fails at being a “Looney Tunes” film.