**It was a landmark film for young people and children in the 90s, but it is currently forgotten.**
This is one of those movies that almost everyone has seen or heard about… or, at least, everyone who was children or teenager in the 90s, like me. Currently, the film is largely forgotten, and I feel that not even the release of a new film has served to spark interest in it. I don't know if that's entirely fair, because the movie is quite entertaining and works well, providing some nice, enjoyable fun for everyone… even non-basketball fans like me, who've never even seen a game.
The plot is simple: a group of tiny, seemingly unthreatening aliens are willing to do anything to kidnap the Looney Tunes and take them to their planet. Watching them, Bugs Bunny comes up with the idea of challenging them to a basketball game that will decide the toons fate, convinced that everything will be resolved easily. But lo and behold, the aliens steal the talent of top NBA players and turn into monsters, dominating the match. Aware of the situation, Bugs and Daffy Duck decide to bring in Michael Jordan, who had retired to play baseball.
The film was, financially, a safe bet for Warner Bros. We don't just have Looney Tunes, the crazy creatures we've grown used to after decades of cartoons, but also basketball, a particularly popular sport in the US. In addition to Jordan, other famous players of the time will appear in the film, also representing themselves, in addition to their teams, and I have no doubt that the NBA paid a lot of money for all this publicity. And it's not even worth talking about the huge amount of products that come up strategically or that are named in the dialogues, and that also paid for it. Add to the advertising revenue the box office receipts (it was the most successful basketball movie to date) and all the merchandising that was sold afterward, from toys to coasters... and we have an idea of how profitable the movie was for the studio.
Michael Jordan made his cinematic debut here, as it was the first (and, I think, the only) feature film he starred in. He's not an actor, he's not trained as such, but he managed it reasonably well, which shouldn't have been too difficult, as everything was limited to playing himself and making a few passes with the ball. The other players also did a decent job, and seem to be enjoying while parodying themselves. In the dramatic field, it is really Bill Murray who shines, as a professional comic actor, giving us the best performance in the film. There are several competent voice actors here, with Danny De Vito being the most easily identifiable and the one who stands out the most.
Technically, the film deserves an applause for the quality of the animations, and for the positive way in which they play with real characters. It's not a pioneering film, “Who Framed Roger Rabbit” did the same several years earlier, and with better results, but what we're given here is good enough. The cinematography is good and the same can be said for the effects. As for the soundtrack, only the song “I Believe I Can Fly” stands out particularly, and this film contributed a lot to popularize it and guarantee it the Grammy Award that year.
When the big (figuratively speaking) boss of an intergalactic entertainment world captures "Bugs" and the other "Looney-Tuners", he vows to enslave them as lucrative attractions for the rest of their days. "Bugs" is no slouch when it comes to self-preservation, though, and so convinces his henchmen that the sporting thing to do is challenge them. Winner takes all. They aren't the brightest crayons in the tin, so agree to a game of basketball - despite having no idea what it actually is. With the match looming, he realises that his team haven't really much more of an idea so they need a mentor. Coincidentally, NBA legend Michael Jordan has just retired and taken up baseball. Suffice to say that it's lucky he has already made his cash elsewhere becuse he couldn't hit a barn door with a shovel in his new chosen sport. Can he come back and galvanise "Bugs" et al? Just to further complicate matters, it seems that the aliens have taken some pretty ingenious steps to acquire the knowledge they need to win the game and so team "Tunes" is going to have to get it's act together if it is to avoid signing autographs all day, every day, for the rest of eternity! Time hasn't been very kind to the technical aspects of this - indeed much of the live-action/animation mixing looks really quite dated now, but Jordan is quite a charismatic man and with a few guest appearances from other stars of the sport as well as a decent soundtrack, it flows along well enough. Except? Well except for the lack of bunny. There's a distinct paucity of "Bugs" and I missed that. In fact, I could have been doing with a load more of the animated characters across the board, especially the baddies, as we head to the denouement that, as ever with basketball, comes down to the wire. It's watchable enough, but not great.
