SPACE JAM: A NEW LEGACY: 3 STARS
Whatâs up, Doc? A sequel to a 25-year-old movie, that is whatâs up.
âSpace Jam: A New Legacy,â now in theatres, freshens up the 1996 Michael Jordan live-action/animated sports hybrid film with a new star and a lot of familiar (animated) faces.
The story begins in Akron, Ohio, 1988. Teenaged LeBron James is a gifted basketball player, but is distracted by his Game Pocket Computer and cartoons. A reprimand from his coachââYouâre a once-in-a-lifetime-talent!ââconvinces him to focus on basketball and forget about childish things.
Itâs a lesson he takes to heart.
By the time heâs grown, and a superstar, heâs all business and doesnât understand why his son Dom (Cedric Joe) is more interested in coding than crossover dribbles. The younger James is busy too, creating a basketball video game to become a team player.
Meanwhile inside the Warner Bros Serververse, Al-G Rhythm, a computer program stuck inside the Serververse, and who looks just like Don Cheadle, has his eye set on LeBron as his way out into the world. âOnce I combine King James with my incredible tech,â she says, âI will finally get the recognition I deserve.â
Trouble is, LeBron is not impressed by the studioâs offer to scan him into movies, making him a virtual movie star. âSay yes,â the studio reps say, âand weâll make mind blowing entertainment forever.â
But itâs a no. âItâs among the worst ideas ever,â says LeBron. âAthletes acting. That never goes well.â
Dom likes the idea, and his curiosity about the process leads him to the Warner Bros tech department, where he and LeBron get sucked into the movie studioâs server and come face-to-face with ânefarious nimrodâ Al-G Rhythm.
Trapped in the digital space, the only way out is a high-stakes basketball game. LeBron must recruit the Looney Tunes gang to play against AI's over-the-top Goon Squad, made up of virtual avatars with super powers and names like Wet-Fire, White Mamba and Chronos.
From the Nike logo LeBron leaves pressed into the ground when he falls into the Looney Tunes-verse, to the âMad Max,â âCasablanca,â âAustin Powersâ and âMatrixâ takeoffs, to the endless mentions of Warner Bros in the script, itâs hard not to feel like intellectual property and product placement are driving the story. Itâs a wild and wooly world, imaginative and unpredictable, but it often feels like marketing rather than a story.
Not that kids will care. And that is who this movie is for.
Director Malcolm D. Lee keeps younger minds entertained with video game and cartoon inspired action, while adults will get the clever Michael Jordan joke and bask in the nostalgia of sees old characters like Bugs Bunny and Marvin the Martian in new situations. Thereâs also a pretty fun game in spotting the mix-and-march of characters who make up the audience for the big game. I spotted the Gremlins, the flying monkeys from âWizard of Oz,â Pennywise the Clown and a dozen or so others.
âSpace Jam: A New Legacyâ smooths away some of the adult edges from the first movieâthere are no Quentin Tarantino references this time around and Lola Bunny, now voiced by Zendaya, no longer wears a crop topâresulting in a family-friendly film with good messages about being your authentic self and not what others want you to be, and the importance of playing by the rules.
ROADRUNNER: A FILM ŰÎŰ´ŤĂ˝ ANTHONY BOURDAIN: 4 STARS
In the opening moments of âRoadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain,â a new documentary about the late television host and author, now playing in theatres, we hear the titular characterâs voice state the obvious. âThis does not have a happy ending,â he says.
For fans of Bourdain, the former heroin addict chef-turned-author-turned-television-star-turned-cultural-avatar, âRoadrunnerâ comes with high expectations.
The edgy but empathic Bourdain, who was 61 when he took his own life while shooting a television show in France, inspires strong feelings. A standard, hagiographic look at his life, rehashing the well-known details of his career, would be met with a collective yawn. Get too prickly and it might be seen as disrespectful to the memory of a man many still miss.
âRoadrunnerâ somehow straddles the line, providing a balanced overview of the scrappy chefâs personal and professional lives. Using outtakes from Bourdainâs shows âNo Reservations,â âThe Layoverâ and âParts Unknown,â new interviews with friends and family and home footage, director Morgan â20 Feet from Stardomâ Neville compiles a Russian nesting doll look of his subject.
What emerges is a deep dive into the life a complex man; a person who circled the globe dozens of times searching for meaning with every air mile point earned. âHis whole personality was of a searcher,â says Alison Mosshart, the vocalist of The Kills and The Dead Weather. âHe was always looking for something, and it was agony for him.â
Neville captures some of that agony, forcing the viewer to see familiar footage recontextualized by Bourdainâs co-workers and friends. With no shortage of material to choose fromâBourdainâs 250 days a year on the road were meticulously filmed and documentedâNeville cherry picks moments that reveal the toll Bourdainâs schedule, celebrity and search for normalcy took.
Often the most revealing footage isnât of the man speaking, but of the exhausted or melancholy look visible in his eyes as he performs for the camera. âLife was never going to measure up to how he pictured it,â says âParts Unknownâ segment producer Helen M. Cho. âHe set himself up for disappointment.â
The circumstances of his death, of course, are investigated. His colleagues become tearful describing his last months as a lifelong addict who turned his addition to Italian actress and director Asia Argento. âRoadrunnerâ examines Bourdainâs final days but this isnât a whodunnit or an exercise in pointing fingers. Itâs a story about his life, not death.
âRoadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdainâ provides an emotionally raw portrait of a gifted, charismatic man who travelled the world but never quite figured out where he needed to be. âYou are not going to outrun or out smart pain,â comments artist David Choe, who provides the movie with a suitably Bourdain-esque ending.
PIG: 3 STARS
Trailers for âPig,â the new Nicolas Cage movie now playing in theatres, suggests a bacon flavored version of âTaken,â but thatâs not what the movie is about. There is a kidnapping, a chase and even a catchphraseââI need my pig.ââbut this is an dissertation on bereavement, so donât expect a hog-wild action movie.
Cage plays Robin Feld, a once revered chef in the Portland, Oregon area, who gave it all up to live in the middle of nowhere with his truffle-hunting pig. His only contact with the outside world is Amir (Alex Wolff), the young man who supplies restaurants with the truffles Robin and his beloved pig find in the woods.
After a day of foraging, Robin and the pig settle in for the night, when suddenly the door is kicked in. Robin is knocked unconscious and the pig is abducted. The next day, with dried blood still caked on his face, Robin recruits Amir to chauffeur him around Portland in search of the people responsible for the pignapping.
âPigâ is advertised as a thriller, but itâs not. Itâs more a story loss and what happens to people when the thing they care about is taken away. A key phrase comes in a long scene between Feld and a local chef as they discuss passion as it relates to food, life and relationships.
âWe donât get a lot of things to really care about,â Feld says. Itâs a speech about the deep connection we make to the people and things we feel passionate about, and how important it is to heed those passions.
Itâs also a testament to the void those passions leave when bad things happen. No spoilers here, but âPigâ isnât about the kidnapping or the chase, itâs about passion, and the deep well of emotion that accompanies it.
Once again Cage takes on a taciturn character with a past. For the first half of the movie the pig has more lines than Cage. As such, the gonzo actor keeps the yelling and the histrionics to a minimum. For much of the movie, despite his ragged appearance, he is restrained almost to the point of sleepwalking. It doesnât make for compelling viewing, but as the character opens up verbally, we begin to understand his motives for past and present behavior and the character comes into focus.
âPigâ is a nicely performed movie that delivers beyond its absurd sounding premiseâman searches for his kidnapped pigâbut may play too minor a chord to really strike home emotionally.