BQB here with a review of Amazon’s Lucille Ball biopic.
Reviews of this film haven’t been great and all I can say is this: whether you like this film or not will depend on what you were hoping for when you turned it on.
If you were looking for laughs, you’ll be sorely disappointed, which is strange, given that it is a film about the life and times of the 1950’s Hollywood power couple that invented the sitcom. All the funny half hour shows you know and love have Mr. and Mrs. Ricardo to thank for convincing the network suits that Americans love to laugh, not just once but over and over again in perpetual re-run syndication.
If you were looking for scandalous backstage power plays and intrigue, you’ve come to the right place. I have to admit, when I first heard about this movie, I wondered if Aaron Sorkin was the right man for the job. He gave us The West Wing and is best known for political drama, his calling card being characters who walk and talk while giving exposition dumps (and sometimes those dumps are so long they end up doing a lot of walking…is it me or have these characters covered enough ground to make a football field?)
Sure enough, the walk and talk happens here and Sorkin fans might chuckle as we see Nicole Kidman’s Lucille Ball and Javier Bardem’s Desi Arnaz walk and talk across studio backlots while they discuss the latest doings with the various cast and crew members who made “I Love Lucy” the powerhouse it was (and in many ways, still is.)
The film allows us to be a fly on the wall during a rough week for the Ricardos (technically, shouldn’t this be called being the Arnazes? Being the Ball-Arnazes?) With all the turmoil and infighting, it is a wonder that any show makes it to the TV screen, and given the number of obstacles in Lucy and Desi’s path, it’s a wonder they had the careers that they did.
Lucy faces false commie charges, having registered for a worker’s political party in her 20s just to please her labor loving grampa who raised her, unaware the act would be used some 20 something years later to lob accusations of being a Bolshevik loving Trotskyite. Desi, who fled Cuba to escape the Castro regime, the violence of which he saw up close and personal, publicly defends his wife though in private, informs her that she did indeed “check the wrong box.”
The accusation threatens to derail the show and put Lucy and Desi on the unemployment line (ahh, the type of political intrigue that Sorkin loves). Meanwhile, Lucy has to deal with Desi’s wandering penis (the press is also lobbying charges of Desi’s infidelity, which he strongly denies but, well, if you’re familiar with the story then you know the score.)
As if that weren’t enough, Lucy has to fight Hollywood suits who don’t want her pregnant on TV because damn it, talking about pregnancy is admission that the pregnant woman had sex and you can’t talk about sex in any way shape or form on 1950s TV. (In retrospect, one wonders how we went from Lucy and Ricky sleeping in separate beds in the 1950s to the Sex and the City girls humping their way through Manhattan with no detail spared in the 1990s.) See that? If Lucy and Desi hadn’t convinced the suits that the world wouldn’t end if a pregnant woman appeared on TV, then you wouldn’t have all these shows where characters bang a new person every week with zero consequences and…well…I’m not sure that’s even what L and D wanted but moving on…
Did I mention Lucy and Desi were the first interracial couple on TV? Somehow, Lucy must navigate the choppy waters of telling off suits who don’t want to see a Hispanic man married to a white woman on television. Meanwhile, Desi comes from a Cuban culture where, as the film tells us, “the man is the man” and thus it can be hard for Desi to play second fiddle to his wife, who goes out of her way to make sure everyone knows that Desi is indeed, a first fiddle, especially when it comes to making all the business decisions of the Desi-Lu empire.
Side intrigue comes from staff writer Madelyn Pugh (Alia Shawkat) trying to make her way in a boys’ club, Nina Arianda as Vivian Vance (Ethel on the Lucy show) fighting storylines/jokes on the show about how Ethel is pretty enough/worthy of being elderly Fred’s wife (J.K. Simmons excels as Fred actor William Frawley who imparts words of wisdom to Lucy during rare moments of sobriety.)
My main criticisms? The show brings a lot of modern wokeness and I’m not sure how much of it actually happened or how much of it is Sorkin wishing it had happened. Lucy and Desi’s fights to keep an interracial couple on TV while one half of the couple is pregnant are well known, whereas, for example, was there a lot of handwringing about whether or not the Lucy character should be stronger and less infantile? (I’m no Lucy historian but there probably was). (In the show’s defense, it did explore the ins and outs of so-called traditional gender roles in an episode where Lucy and Ethel go to work only to freak out on a chocolate candy production line that moves too fast while Desi and Fred nearly drown in a soap sud tsunami created by their incompetent dish washing…this might have been mentioned in the film…and I suppose in some ways, the old “they did the best that the 1950s would allow” comes up again and again.
STATUS: Shelf worthy. Nicole Kidman in prosthetics is virtually unrecognizable. She does a raspy voice, typical of Lucy impersonations though she didn’t really get that smoker’s rasp until she was older and the smoking caught up with her. Then again I could be wrong. As I said, I’m not a Lucy historian. Bardem lays the accent on a little thick and though Desi had a thick accent (jokes about Lucy not understanding what Ricky was saying were a constant show staple) I’m not sure it was as thick as Bardem played it.
A good film but ultimately, if you wanted laughs, you’ll be disappointed. If you want to see the strife that ensues when an interracial power couple fights against a Hollywood machine in a time that didn’t want them and achieve a series of TV firsts, this is your movie.
One final criticism – the movie does these side interviews where older versions of the crew come out and pretend like they are being interviewed. This surprised me as the documentary style interviews struck me as real and genuine, yet in my mind, I kept asking, wouldn’t all these people be dead by now? True enough, I looked it up and the interviews with older versions of crew members were acted out by older actors/actresses. In other words, I spent all of last night thinking that Madelyn Pugh went on to appear in Alice’s Diner in the 1980s and looks fabulous even though she must be like 100 years old only to realize it was Linda Lavin of Alice’s Diner playing an older version of Pugh. I’m just not sure the interviews make sense given that…well I’m not sure if anyone involved in I Love Lucy is still alive today but if they are, they have to be pushing 100 or more. I take that back. Desi and Lucy Arnaz (the kids of the marriage) are still kicking though up their in years in their own right…and maybe if there was a kid backstage selling newspapers or shining shoes or something they’d still be alive but old but that’s about it.
Ho ho ho, 3.5 readers. Am I in the festive spirit? No, I’m just calling 3 out of 3.5 of you prostitutes.
You’re probably one of those commie pinkos who thinks that Ebenezer Scrooge only becomes the hero of A Christmas Carol at the end of the story when he starts giving away all his stuff, but come with me and you’ll see that Old Scroogey was the tops all along.
#1 – Scrooge was a self-made man.
Started at the bottom, now he’s here. You know he got there? A lot of hard ass freaking work. You know how he didn’t get there? Laying about. You know how he doubly didn’t get there? Handing out his hard earned Victorian era gold coins to good for nothing reprobates.
#2 – Belle Sucks
The Ghost of Christmas Past, one of three socialist specters who barge into Scrooge’s bachelor pad in the middle of the night like they own the damn place, takes Scroogey Pants to his youth, where he sees his young self getting dumped by his then fiance, Belle. The man’s crime? He worked too much.
Let me reiterate: his dumpworthy crime was that he worked too much.
Holy shit. Charles Dickens was peddling this Lifetime Channel for Women crap long before there was a Lifetime Channel for Women. Do you want to know why men have such a hard time understanding how to make a woman happy? It’s because Lifetime Channel for Women Christmas movies literally have the same plot points, ironically all within the same films:
Woman dumps high school boyfriend because HE lacks ambition.
Woman dumps boyfriend she met in the big city because HE works too much. Fuck that guy for having way too much ambition.
Woman returns to hometown. Reconnects with high school boyfriend. Appreciates how he is laid back and supportive and has time for her and…will support her while SHE works hard and pursues her AMBITION.
Lost after the end credits – the part where now successful woman grows resentful of how ambitionless HS BF is a wimpy moocher so she has an affair with a rich successful dude who is ambitious AF.
All I’m saying is if Belle had loved Scrooge, she would have stuck with him and supported him in his goal of becoming the most successful usurious counting house operator in all of Old London Town. Flip the script. If Scrooge had dumped Belle for having goals, that same busy body ghost would be dragging his old ass out of bed just to rub it in his face that if he’d just supported his fiance’s dreams, he’d be knee deep in Belle’s knickers by now and not all alone on Christmas Eve as a decrepit old fuck.
#3 – Mr. Fezziwig Blows
Past Ghost also drags Scrooge to an old office party, showing the old coot that once upon a time, he had a boss by the name of Mr. Fezziwig and that boss knew how to have a good time. Yes, on Christmas Eve, Scrooge’s very first employer would push all the desks to the side and bring in the band and the food and everyone would have a rocking good time…on whose time? You guessed it. On the shareholders’ dime.
Yeah, you might think Fezziwig is a barrel of laughs, but do the math. He’s one of those dumb Wall Street types who caused the market crash in 2008. Remember all those stories of executives going wild with their companies’ profits? Spending lavishly on extravagances, all the while ignoring the fiscal health of their corporations? You know what these shitheads spent money on? Parties. You know what they didn’t spend it on? A mother-humping rainy day fund that would have kept the company afloat and the low-level Cratchit type office drones employed through hard ass times.
You got a boss like Scrooge who demands that everything be business as usual on Christmas Eve? Good. Thank his ass for keeping the company you depend on to put food in your mouth afloat and not spending your next paycheck on stupid ass parties.
#4 – Fuck Fred
Fuck Fred and all of his dumbass holier than thou trust fund millennial bullshit. Fred acts like he’s the shit because he’s young and hip and has friends and they get together and have hot and swanky Marco Polo parties where blindfolded guests try to find each other and maybe every so often a gentleman will rub up against a lady’s ankle. Scandalous, I say!
You know what Fred doesn’t know about? Work. Fred can whine about how grumpy his uncle works but if Fred had any idea how much freaking blood, sweat and tears his deceased parents put into funding the trust fund that pays for him to be a swanky ass Marco Polo party throwing gentleman, or how hard Scrooge has worked and how he still finds time to manage that trust fund so Fred doesn’t end up in some Victorian back-alley giving hand jobs to Jack the Ripper types for a six pence, he’d shut his damn gob and for once in his useless life, thank his uncle for everything, then go to his parents’ graves and thank their dead asses too. Seriously, Fuck Fred.
#5 – The Cratchits Need to Stop Fucking
Look, overall Bob Cratchit seems like a good egg and I would say is another unsung hero of the story, second only to Scrooge. Bob is a broken down old middle aged asshole who probably had a lot of hopes and dreams when he was young but then somehow took a few wrong turns and ended up as a scrivener in Scrooge’s counting house. For those not in the know, being a scrivener in the 1800s was basically the equivalent of being a human printer. Scrooge would just dictate his letters like, “Hey Fuckface! You owe me 50 gold coins! Pay up or I’ll foreclose on your shack!” and then dutiful employee that he was, Cratchit would dip his quill pen in an ink fountain and scrawl across a piece of fresh parchment, “Hey Fuckface! You owe Mr. Scrooge 50 gold coins…”
Anyway, we all make mistakes in life, some of us more than others and in Cratchit’s case, you can’t fault a man who is on the ropes yet keeps getting back up to let life take more swings at him. He comes to work every day and takes Scrooge’s verbal abuse and never talks back and listen up kids, because any adult worth their salt will tell you that literally half the battle when it comes to holding down a job for the long term is a) keep showing up and b) keep taking your boss’ verbal abuse while saying nothing in return.
But Bob and Mrs. Cratchit have a big problem. They like to fuck. And it’s old times so there’s no rubbers or contraception and I think everyone in this time period thinks all of that is evil anyway. Plus, everyone is potent as all get out because all the food is fresh with no preservatives. There’s no microwaves or laptop computers on your junk or cell phones in your pocket transmitting signals to your junk. There’s no soda pop or fast food or bad food and no tighty whitey underwear so literally, every fuck session results in a kid. Fuck. Boom. A Kid. Fuck. Boom. Another kid. If you lived in Victorian England under the reign of Queen Vicky and Prince Albie and you fucked, then clear your schedule for 9 months because a baby is on the way.
But let me ask you this. Is it Scrooge’s fault that Mr. and Mrs. Cratchit like to get their fuck on? I don’t think so, yet that leftist troll Dickens sure seems to think it is. For Christ’s sake, Scrooge gave Cratchit a damn job when no one else would and yet, Dickens acts like just because Cratchit acts as Scrooge’s personal photocopying machine, that somehow requires Scrooge to pay for every single one of the Cratchit offspring from the cradle to the grave.
Look kids. Here’s a breakdown of whether or not your employer is required to pay for every last living expense of every last one of your progeny.
QUESTION #1 – Did your your boss hit that pussy? If no, then shut the fuck up and a) either stop fucking or b) get a job and you know what c) tell your wife to get a damn job too. If yes, then alright, he should pay for the resulting kid but you need to talk to your wife and demand that she stop fucking your boss.
That’s it. There is no question 2.
Sidenote: Could Scrooge have a heart and spare some dough to help Tiny Tim get a fucking operation to cure his gamey foot and leprosy and downtrodden street urchin syndrome and whatever else old timey disease he has? Sure…IF HE WANTS TO.
REMEMBER:
A) Scrooge didn’t get his fuck on. We know this, because he’s a lonely old son of a bitch who lives all by himself in a dusty old mansion. Life is all about choices. Scrooge chose money over pussy and given the way Belle treated him, I can’t say he’s wrong. Cratchit chose pussy over money and as a result, he might be rich in love but it really isn’t Scrooge’s responsibility to give up his loot whenever the Cratchits bump uglies. Had Cratchit wanted to be rich, he could have just as easily told Mrs. C to cool her jets because he needs to take on more scrivening jobs and become a multi-million-gold-coin aire/human mimeograph mogul but he didn’t. He chose to fuck and so he gets what he deserves. In the end, we are all the sum of our choices.
#6 – Screw Scrooge’s Ungrateful Mortgagees
You know what the best moment of my life was, noble reader? The day I got approved for a mortgage. That meant I got to put down roots on my own piece of land and be the king of my own castle. Pretty great feeling. You know what happens when you get your own place? You get lots of junk mail – rat bastards who want to loan you money because they know you must have some if you got approved for a mortgage.
You know why I like having my own place? Because I can do whatever I want in the privacy of my own house. That’s right. If I want to draw a clown face on a paper grocery bag and throw it over my head and masterbate myself gently to sleep whilst enthralled in a marathon of old Airwolf episodes I can, and fuck you and everyone else who doesn’t think the best show ever made starring Jan Michael Vincent as the pilot of a top secret CIA spy copter isn’t the tits.
But I digress.
The Ghost of Christmas Future shows Scrooge a couple who were about to lose their home because they fell behind on the mortgage payments. They learn of Scrooge’s death and are elated because this means they get more time to come up with the cash.
Look, my mortgage lender is a coldhearted, faceless corporation, but let’s say, for the sake of argument, that my lender was just like, a dude named Steve. Say I hear it through the grapevine that Steve fucking croaked. Am I going to be happy about this? No. Know why? Because I’m a decent human being and my first reaction is to be sad when any human being dies and also, I’m grateful to Steve for believing in me enough to help finance my dream of home ownership. Steve didn’t have to loan me all that money, but he did. He thought I was a bet worth making. And you know how I’d feel if I was late with a payment? Sad. Ashamed I let Steve down. I’d go out and bus tables, take extra work, shine shoes, collect tin cans, suck a hobo dick, do whatever it takes to get Steve’s money back to him on time so he doesn’t think less of me because after all, it touched my heart that he thought enough of me to loan me all that money in the first place.
You know who else believed in people, all over all of Old London Town? One Ebenezer Scrooge. That’s who. Even though his fiance dumped his ass for the high crime of being an overachiever, he still didn’t lose faith in humanity. People come to him looking for him to finance their dreams and he did. They were all too happy and eager to take the money but when it’s time to pay back the money? Oh no. Now they act like they’re doing Scrooge a favor. They act like they’re doing Scrooge a solid for giving him what already belongs to him according to a pre-approved time table that they agreed to. You know who made it possible for you to have a roof over your head and a place to sleep and raise a family? Ebenezer Scrooge, so maybe instead of cheering his death because you were too fucking lazy to get off your ass and earn the next mortgage payment, maybe go to his funeral and pay your respects and give him one last thank you for believing your stupid sorry ass and then go suck a dick…ten, no twenty dicks. Suck as many dicks as you need until you have enough money to pay your next mortgage payment to Scrooge’s estate…ON TIME.
#7 – Scrooge’s Housekeeper Should Go to Jail
Here’s another dumbass that Scrooge believed in. Gave her a job. Gave her a purpose, gainful employment, paid her a wage. Trusted her to come into his house and how does she repay him? Stealing all his shit the second his old ass dies. The Ghost of Christmas Future shows Scrooge this scene on the premise that Scrooge is such a crusty old jerkwad that even his housekeeper has no love for him and sees his death not as a reason to mourn but as one last chance to line her pockets with Scrooge’s belongings.
Pardon my language but…FUCK…THAT…BITCH. Oh, what? Like she was on her way to Vasser to become the first female Prime Minister of England before Scrooge enticed her into a lifetime of being paid to keep a mansion clean? Yeah, no. She was no doubt giving handies next to the Thames two at a time before Scrooge and will have to go back to that life after Scrooge. There are way too many people in this world who resent the shit out of their employers rather than thank them for giving them the job that keep s the lights on, the heat on, the roof over their head, and the hobo’s dick out of their ungrateful mouths. I
Seriously, if this woman had an ounce of loyalty in her wretched heart, she’d weep for her boss and then put in one last day making sure the mansion is nice and clean for whoever inherits it, which we can only assume will be Fred and ….aw, fuck Fred!
#8 – No Solicitors
Remember those charity collecting do-gooders who harass Scrooge for a handout in the beginning, looking to help the poor? And Scrooge’s response is to ask if the prisons and workhouses have been shut? And then the collectors say people would rather die than go there and Scrooge says let them and reduce the surplus population?
Look, I can’t condone Scrooge’s Thanos-like argument, but keep in mind, in Old England, prison was like the government’s only social program and the workhouse was the equivalent of getting a first job at McDonalds. So, translated today, Scrooge is telling these do-gooders to tell the poor to go get some food stamps (that his tax dollars already paid for) and go get some entry level employee training at Burger King and leave him alone because this rich ass dude is already doing his part to keep London clothed and fed. He’s giving everyone the loans they need to keep a roof over their head and you want him to buy everyone a Christmas goose too? Fuck that.
#9 – Marley Was a Cuck
Look, I don’t care how many chains and oversized novelty locks Scrooge’s old partner, Marley, is required to carry around in the afterlife. Marley did nothing wrong and he is being falsely persecuted. Marley taught Scrooge everything he knows about usurious money lending and the gold coin counting trade and he shouldn’t be ashamed of it, no matter what those other hippy ghosts say.
You know who was loyal? Scrooge. He was the only one who showed up to Marley’s funeral and he never changed the name of his counting house. Never painted over the Marley and Scrooge sign. Loved the man too much and why not? Because he taught him how to get rich AF. Don’t be like Marley. Don’t apologize for being rich AF.
#10 – God Bless Us, Everyone
So in the end, the best thing about being rich is you can intervene in the lives of poor people. You, as a rich fucker, might see someone having a rough go of it and you might think, “This reminds me of that time I had a rough go of it and if only some rich fucker had intervened on my behalf…” and then you go and intervene on the downtrodden person’s behalf.
It’s awesome that Scrooge decides to take it upon himself to save Tiny Tim’s life by buying the Cratchit family a Christmas goose and then apparently taking on every single last medical bill that Tiny Tim’s leprosy ridden body requires.
But Scrooge should only do this because he wants to, not because he was guilted into it, and the entire time Bob Cratchit must be reminded that he is less of a man because his boss of all people had to intervene and pay for the sickliest Cratchit’s gamey limb treatments. Bob should feel like a pathetic, loserish pile of donkey dung and should immediately go out and get a second scrivener job. I mean, holy shit, this dude has so many kids that he needs to be scrivenering all day, night and weekends just to pay for them all. And you know what? Mrs. Cratchit should take in some laundry and some seamstress work and not gonna lie, both Mr and Mrs C should be sucking hobo dick on the sly for tuppence just to make ends meet.
Know who shouldn’t be guilted into paying for everything? Scrooge.
I don’t know how it’s possible for a movie starring The Rock, Ryan Reynolds and Gal Gadot to be a boring stinkfest but darned if Netflix didn’t find a way to make it happen.
BQB here with a review.
I don’t know how Netflix tricked me again, seeing as how I’ve written about how Netflix has tricked me before. They put out promos for awesome looking movies with big stars and you can’t wait and then it drops and it stinks.
The way I see it: Apparently, Netflix can hire big stars or great writers, but it’s rare for the company to bring both together.
Ironically, the plot sounds as awesome at the stars. Rival art thieves (Gadot and Reynolds) go to war over Cleopatra’s (she of Ancient Egypt fame) prized golden eggs, with FBI agent The Rock caught in the middle. Double crosses, triple crosses, globe trotting, heists, explosions, and Nazi secrets abound and yet…YAWN.
Why? Heavy on the exposition dumps. I hate exposition dumps. You hate exposition dumps. Writing 101. Show us. Don’t tell us. We go to movies for entertainment, not to be given a bunch of facts up front that we have to commit to memory so we can understand the plot later.
Sometimes I wonder if I’m too hard on these movies because Netflix made them but I don’t think so. If one really strikes my fancy, I’ll give it its due, like I did recently with Army of Thieves, but I think when it’s billed as a film with three top stars, you go in expecting a lot of razzle dazzle and instead well…imagine if like, a sophomore English major banged out a movie script in an hour but for some reason, was rich enough to hire The Rock, Reynolds and Gadot to star in it…maybe its not THAT bad but still. I expected more. I expected these three would look at the script and be like, “Um…keep the money. I don’t want to be in sucky movies.”
To be fair, the film has its moments, as many do. Its a fun distraction to eat popcorn to but there’s zero character development and I get it. Most of these flicks don’t have any character development but at least there’s an attempt. The biggest question left on the floor is how did a musclebound FBI agent end up as an art expert? What convinced him to use his art knowledge to fight art crime?
I do have to give it some points in that it let Gadot be the villain, which is a big change for her. Even so, Reynolds rattles off his “Who, me?” one liners. The Rock kicks ass. Gadot is that rare person who is both beautiful and kind, such that even when she applies an electro shock device to The Rock’s nards, it’s hard to believe she isn’t secretly concerned for her adversary’s safety.
STATUS: Shelf-worthy, but I’m wise to this scam. From now on, I won’t get excited by these streaming service blockbuster ads because I know deep down, they’ll spend big on the special effects and actors, but skimp on the writing, so I will never again watch a…OH MY GOD! DISNEY PLUS JUST RELEASED A NEW HOME ALONE MOVIE?! I GOTTA GO WATCH THIS THING! THAT SOUNDS AWESOME!
I couldn’t help but notice the distinct lack of Seal’s “Kiss From a Rose,” but I’ll review it anyway.
I was a kid when the original Space Jam came out and my thought at the time was, “This is the dumbest movie ever made.”
And then I blinked, half my life passed me by and now they’ve made the dumbest sequel to the dumbest movie ever made.
But let me back up. The sequel inspired me to watch some clips of the original and I’ll admit, as an adult, I appreciate the original a bit more and I somewhat understand what everyone involved was trying to do.
Basically, in the 1990s, Michael Jordan conquered basketball, but unlike Alexander the Great, he didn’t weep, because there were plenty of other worlds to conquer…and boy he tried, oh how he tried. His Royal Airness tried to dominate baseball but didn’t get too far. He got into shoe design and succeeded, Air Jordans being more popular than ever.
And he attempted a foray into Hollywood with the original, “this is so bad it is kinda good” movie…at the very least it developed a cult following. If you were a 1990s kid and you loved cartoons and basketball, then you loved this movie.
Meanwhile, the Looney Tunes had grown stale, stagnant. The world had become a rougher place and there was less appreciation for their brand of pie in the face, slapstick comedy.
Thus it was a match – a movie that allowed Jordan a Hollywood victory while keeping Bugs and Co. alive well into the twenty-first century.
Skip a head a couple decades and some change and Lebron James is today’s numero uno basketball star. Hollywood is remaking literally everything, so I suppose it was only a matter of time before they remade a movie that was odd to begin with.
The main criticism you may have read already? It sells out. The entire movie comes across as one great big commercial for Warner Brothers’ movie catalog, perhaps even taking advantage of the opportunity to rekindle old IP claims.
Disney is a master at this and there are times when Mickey and Co. collaborate with the House of Mouse’s stars, only for the audience to gasp at how far reaching their cinematic universe is.
So it feels like WB wanted to mimic that…but I mean…you know…come on now…how many kids were waiting to see a cameo from Casablanca, or A Clockwork Orange or What Happened to Baby Jane? (I actually thought that one was an odd looking Marilyn Monroe until the web told me different).
My 2 cents is the massive sell-out saves the movie, and is probably the only way it could have been made. The plot, if you can call it that, centers around “Warner 3000” or the Warner Brothers Studio server, controlled by an algorithm or to be exact, “Al G. Rhythm” and honestly, I’d love to be the writer who came up with that name. He was probably like, “Yeah I have to get this draft in soon and I don’t want to be late for pilates so Al G. Rhythm it is.”
Even worse, Al is played by the great Don Cheadle. Part of me feels bad that Don, a longtime established thespian who has taken on great, dramatic roles and appeared in some of the biggest movies of the past few decades, lowered himself to appear in this drek…but then the other part of me reminds myself that Don cashed the check so…moving on.
Al considers himself a great genius deserving of glory and will never be famous for as long as he remains hidden in the Warner Server-verse. So, blah blah blah, long story short, he hatches a plan to kidnap Lebron’s son Dom and challenges King James to a basketball game, to be livestreamed to the public, the clicks of which will no doubt give him the attention he desires.
At first, Lebron thinks this will be a cinch, for he can call on WB’s greatest champs, like Superman, the Iron Giant, King Kong and so on to take on Al G.’s Goon Squad consisting of NBA and WNBA greats mashed up with animals to become b-ball dunking monsters.
‘Alas, you guessed it…Bugs Bunny and friends are the only back up that the Warnerverse will put at Lebron’s disposal.
In my opinion, the Tuney crossover into the Warnerverse saves the movie. I get why people think it’s a sell out, but 30 minutes into watching Lebron act (hey no offense, but everyone has one talent gifted from God and people want to see basketball players act about as much as they want to see Meryl Streep dribble a ball)…watching Bugs chase down his pals who migrated to other corners of the Warnerverse gave me the laughs I needed to keep watching.
For me, Wyle E. Coyote and the Mad Max villains chasing Road Runner and Wyle E. holding up a sign that reads “Witness Me!” was all I needed to stay…and at a run time of 2 hours for a plot as thin as tissue paper, you really do need a good laugh.
On the one hand, it’s fun. It’s got a lot of pretty colors and great graphics. If your kids like sports, they’ll like it. If they don’t like sports, just fast forward through the first half hour until Bugs shows up.
On the other hand, I have to question several of the cameos. While Disney’s characters are family friendly…much of the Warnerverse? Not so much.
Examples? Rick and Morty return the Tazmanian Devil to Bugs, after apologizing for conducting experiments on “his weird badger thing.” Yes, R and M is a cartoon but no, this is def not a toon you want your kids watching. Frankly, you shouldn’t watch it either. It’s that naughty.
Others? Well…the game at the end is attended by a vast, sprawling audience consisting of WB characters, with one side devoted to the villains who cheer Al G. on. Some are fun…like an assortment of Batman villains, decked out in their garb from the 1960s, 80s, 90s and so on. Danny Devito’s Penguin hanging with Michelle Pfeiffer’s Catwoman and Cesar Romero’s Joker etc. The Flying Monkeys from the Wizard of Oz? Sure.
Of course, good guys like The Jetsons, the Flintstones, Scooby and the Gang show up to cheer for Lebron and Co.
But then the cameos take a weird turn. Pennywise – seriously, who thought a clown who murders children would be good in a kids’ film? The Nuns from Ken Russells’ The Devils, a film so sexually explicit that WB had to make big cuts to it during the 1970s, which was basically the Wild West period of filmmaking – post Hollywood’s Golden Era where people just agreed nothing naughty should be on film and before the 1980s’ invention of the rating system, which at least gave viewers a heads up if they were about to watch something naughty.
Perhaps the strangest of the strange cameos are the Droogs. Keep in mind that noted skunk pervert Pepe LePew was cancelled, forever banned from the Loony Tunes line up. Those unfamilar? He was a skunk who spoke with a French accent who fancied himself the world’s greatest lover. In each of his toons, a female black cat would accidentally be painted with a white stripe down her back, thus fooling Pepe into thinking there was a hot lady skunk afoot. The Pepester would then pursue the female cat with reckless abandon, refusing to take no for an answer, constantly hitting on her and usually getting clobbered to funny effect in the process.
All I can say is once upon a time, context existed. Pepe never existed to say that men who act like him are to be admired – far from it. He was a character used to make fun of such men and show how ridiculous they are and how women are reviled by them.
But all 2020s Twitter saw was a pervert skunk…so be it. The stinky twerp was cut from the film. I mean, a good writer could have drummed up a quick take where Pepe is called into WB Studios and told that he’s being fired for being a problematic, socially unacceptable pervert skunk (I thought I read somewhere they tried something like that but even a scene where Pepe is shown as problematic would be problematic apparently.)
Where was I? Ah, yes. The Droogs. Have you seen Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange. Don’t. It will warp your mind. It focuses on mind control experiments where the government tries to wash all violent, sexual and evil thoughts and actions from London’s criminal gangs. One such gang, the long john wearing, bowler hat sporting Droogs, conduct a home invasion where they abduct a poor, unsuspecting woman and do horrible things to her.
I won’t belabor the point but like so many who have already opined on this, I find it odd that the pervert skunk had to go, so awful was he that he couldn’t be included even with a joke about him being a pervert skunk, but a gang of brutal rapists, also from the 1970s pre MPAA ratings period, were placed front and center at the b-ball court.
No one seemed to find it odd that Game of Thrones cameos were included. On one level, dragons and white walker zombie cameos are fun and ostensibly kid friendly, just as long as kids don’t ask their parents if they can watch Game of Thrones…because that surely isn’t a show for kids.
Overall, I could go on and on about this point. Warner Bros wants to flash all of its kid characters on screen? Sure. Have it. Flintstones? Jetsons? Scooby? Bring it on. But leave the cameos from adult movies and shows at home. The adults won’t find them that interesting and won’t want to have to explain who that is and who that is to kids who are better off not knowing who they are.
Alas, I can picture the thought process of the WB suits (who, to their credit, are also parodied). “Sure we can cancel Pepe the Pervert Skunk but…WHAT?! You want the Droogs out of the movie?! But someone might see it and want to watch it and then we’ll make more money!”
Which just goes to show that Pepe LePew could have gotten away with sexually harassing poor, unsuspecting white stripe painted female felines for decades to come as long as he made Hollywood money. Disagree? Research the Harvey Weinstein and Bill Cosby cases and get back to me.
STATUS: Shelf worthy. I applaud it’s good message where Lebron advises his son that whatever he wants to achieve in life, he needs to put in the work. An early scene shows a young, unfocused teenage Lebron who almost lost a game due to a lack of focus, a mistake he vows to never again make, thus leading to his success. Focus and hard work. You won’t get far with out either.
There’s also the inevitable lesson for kids who feel pressure from their parents to choose a career path they aren’t interested in, to abandon a dream that seems unlikely. Lebron and Dom lock horns as Lebron wants his son to follow in his b-ball footsteps, while Dom dreams of becoming a video game creator. (I mean, not exactly relatable as most kids might dream of being a b-ball star or a video game creator but instead, their parents want them to go to plumbing school to learn how to install toilets or something, but you get the gist.)
But I must knock off 1 million shelf points because many of the villain cameos were inappropriate and ill advised. Warner, you aren’t Disney, ergo, you might have a Warnerverse, but leave the murderous kid killing clowns and roving gangs of 1970s London based rapists in the vault.
And you know what? Adults don’t really want to see this stuff in a lighthearted kids’ movie either. I get sometimes writers/producers of these movies will throw in the occasional joke that will sail right over the kids’ heads and make the adults laugh as a thank you to those who bought the tickets, but do adults who signed up to watch a movie about Bugs Bunny and Lebron James playing basketball want to see murderous clowns and rapists and evil nuns and so on in the background? No. No we do not. WB should have asked a focus group that question and would have easily found the answer is no.
Want to feel old? The star of Space Jam 3 probably hasn’t even been born yet, or at least hasn’t started playing ball. Here’s hoping I’ll be alive to make fun of the third installment in another 25 years.
Bookshelf Battle 