‘Space Jam’ Director Gives LeBron James Third-Degree Burn With Honest Movie Review of ‘A New Legacy’

How many licks does it take to get to the center of LeBron James’s Space Jam: A New Legacy? Well, according to Joe Pytka the director of the original movie, at least five.

The brutally honest review can be taken with a grain of salt (which Pytka will gladly rub in an open wound) as the audience score for the new movie sits at a comfortable 88 percent compared with the original which is slumming it down at 66 percent. But critics across the board are panning the standalone sequel, with Pytka holding the matchbook among the incendiary reviews.

The director (who at 6′ 5″ has no problem dunking on bad movies) began trash-talking a Space Jam sequel long before LeBron was even attached, and famously turned down offers to helm previous iterations of the project. And now that the movie has officially launched, he hasn’t changed his tune one bit.

Despite saying things like, “The truth is that LeBron ain’t Michael” (both on and off the court), Pytka had a laundry list of issues with A New Legacy that had nothing to do with The Akron Hammer. For starters, he felt the Looney Toons were left flatfooted, noting this version of Bugs Bunny was downright cringe-worthy and “looked like one of those fluffy dolls you buy at an airport gift shop to bring your kid when your business trip has taken too long.”

After tearing apart the supporting cast, the lack of a personal connection between the new storyline and LeBron, and the absence of star power, Pytka alluded that he could only finish watching the movie out of sheer obligation. (Don’t get him started on the soundtrack.)

So what does Michael Jordan think of A New Legacy?

While His Airness hasn’t gone on the record just yet, it’s worth noting that he didn’t even make a cameo in the film. And after digging through old interviews, we discovered Jordan had another NBA star in mind if ever a sequel should arise: Blake Griffin.

LeBron, for what it’s worth, approached the job with the utmost respect, handling it like a Biblical relic. But the truth is, no matter how clutch you are in Game 7 with the clock ticking down, a Space Jam sequel was never going to be a winner.

Cover Photo: Warner Bros.

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