It's been a strange week in Hollywood.
Warner Bros. released its newest project, "Space Jam: A New Legacy," in theaters and on HBO Max. The original "Space Jam," starring Michael Jordan, came out 25 years ago. Since then, it has amassed a cult following with hard-core fans.
One of the major misconceptions in movies is that "Space Jam" was a good film. It's not. It's quite bad, actually. Jordan is not an actor by any means, and watching it as an adult is somewhat cringy.
But that's not to say that a bad movie can't be enjoyable. "Space Jam" is charming, and it's filled with nostalgia. As a kid, you can't tell the difference between a good and a bad movie. Warner Bros. made a movie about famed cartoons playing sports with an energetic soundtrack. That's fun.
Fans of the original movie have long confused quality and nostalgia. There are kid's movies that are exceptional. Then there are features like "Space Jam" that are not intended to form groundbreaking opinions.
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In 2014, Warner Bros. announced that "Space Jam" would get a reboot, and LeBron James was going to be in the leading role. It's deserved, and whether you like him or not, he is one of the best athletes of all time.
The debate over Jordan and LeBron reaches a new boiling point every year, but there are legitimate cases for either to be called the greatest basketball player ever to live. It's only fitting that LeBron gets the nod over all other current players.
I watched "Space Jam: A New Legacy," and I actually had a lot of fun with it. It isn't good. There's no sugar-coating that. But it's still a lot of fun. Some of the jokes hit pretty well, and there was a good amount of nostalgia from the first movie.
What Warner Bros. did was loop "Space Jam: A New Legacy" into all of its money-making products. The whole movie felt like a way to show off everything from Harry Potter to "Game of Thrones." There were times where it just felt like a two-hour-long Warner Bros. ad, but it was also cool to see how many titles they've made over the years.
Where the "Space Jam: A New Legacy" got weird is the grown adults online. Many of them act like the children the movie was made for, and the incessant whining is embarrassing.
There are grown men and women who are legitimately irate at the production of a kid's movie. It's not just a couple, but instead, it's so many that it was trending on Twitter for several days. I can't imagine getting so mad about a movie made for children that I need to let everybody on the internet know how angry I am about it.
The criticism has nothing to do with the actual movie. LeBron is one of the most polarizing people on the planet, and the discussion around his entire career has felt like a debate. It's exhausting at this point.
I'm not going to sit here and say that I am a fan of LeBron James. In all honesty, I don't really care that much about the NBA. But I enjoy watching him play; we may never get to see a player like him ever again. But for one reason or another, he brings the worst out of people, and it's deplorable.
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The LeBron-Jordan debaters are so far gone to the point where they've done their best to ruin a kid's movie. Little do they know the film wasn't made for them. In fact, it was made for kids. It's crazy how that works.
