11/15/96
MOVIE REVIEW: Space Jam
Looney film only courts kids

By MICHAEL JANUSONIS
Journal-Bulletin Arts Writer

**1/2 (out of five)
Starring Michael Jordan, Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Wayne Knight, Theresa Randle, Bill Murray, Charles Barkley, Patrick Ewing, Larry Bird and the voice of Danny DeVito. A Warner Bros. picture written by Steve Rudnick, Leo Benvenuti, Timothy Harris and Herschel Weingrod, directed by Joe Pytka. Rated PG, contains cartoon violence. Running time: 83 minutes.

Filled with biting wit, sarcasm and a jaundiced view of the world, Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck and the rest of the Looney Tunes characters scuttled their way through dozens of cartoon shorts that were as beloved by adults as they were by children.

Now our animated pals have broken out of their cartoon environs in Space Jam, putting basketball great Michael Jordan at the center of their wacky universe in a tale about an intergalactic hoop game that will determine whether they'll stay at Warner Bros. or be sent to an outer space amusement park -- Moron Mountain -- to entertain green and purple and orange creatures called Nerdlucks.

"They're going to make us do stand-up comedy . . . the same jokes for all eternity," moans Bugs as he rallies his Tune Squad team against enormous green and purple and orange basketball players from a far-distant planet.

It's breezy and amusing and lightweight and definitely colorful. The artwork is masterful.

But instead of the cynicism of the old short cartoons, Space Jam is mainly cute, a movie designed to appeal to children rather than adults. Although the Looney Tunes have been given a three-dimensional look thanks to computer-generated animation, they've lost their edge. The jokes and the tiny story and the one-dimensional villains are more akin to television cartoon plots than to the sassy, snappy stuff that made Bugs -- and Daffy and Porky Pig and Sylvester and Tweety and Yosemite Sam and Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner -- beloved of several generations.

It's not often here that you'll hear a line as cutting as the exchange between Bugs and Daffy that's a swipe at Disney and their Mighty Ducks hockey team. After Daffy suggests that their new basketball team be called the Ducks, Bugs complains, "What kind of Mickey Mouse organization would name their team the Ducks?"

Instead of biting wit, Space Jam more often depends on the old cartoon violence in which characters get mangled and flattened, which is pretty funny on its own. And if the cheerfully bland Jordan is a much better basketball player than he is an actor (don't give up your night job, Michael), the cartoon characters keep the minimal plot hopping.

Rather than being kidnapped and sent directly to Moron Mountain, the Looney Tunes trick the tiny Nerdlucks into a basketball challenge. But the amusing little Nerdlucks are no dummies. They go to hoop games, pick out the star players and steal the essence of their talent, suddenly rendering the likes of Charles Barkley and Patrick Ewing dribbling into their socks rather down the court.

Jordan has been spared this embarrassment because he's in his baseball mode -- the new strikeout king, in fact. But when the call goes out, he joins the Looney Tunes . . . at least after he recovers from being roped by Yosemite Sam and dragged down a golf hole, where he's enlisted by Bugs and Daffy.

From there the plot is inevitable and has only a few surprises, mainly that the tiny Nerdlucks suddenly grow to gigantic size, call themselves the Monsters and start pummelling the Tune Squad mercilessly. Things may look hopeless, but do you really think that Bugs Bunny, who once took on Adolf Hitler in a cartoon, is going to lose?

All the favorite Looney Tunes have a role. And a new cast member has been added. FEMINIST ALERT! She's a shapely basketball whiz called Lola Bunny who vamps around the court like a hoochie-koochie dancer when she's not slamming the ball into the basket. Lola's message seems to be that women can do anything men can do . . . so long as they also dress and act provocatively.

The rest is pretty harmless and cheery, though. Who could resist Granny as a cheerleader or the sight of Pepe Le Pew clearing out an arena with his secret formula?