Recent HBO Max release Space Jam: A New Legacy offers Lebron James another avenue to challenge the greatness of Michael Jordan, but how do the two basketball moguls stack up when comparing their respective Space Jams' Rotten Tomatoes scores? The original 1996 film capitalized on a cultural moment surrounding the comeback of America's greatest basketball icon, but its harebrained blend of cartoonish writing and contemporary iconography earned the ire of some critics. Still, the movie proved enough of a cultural marvel to warrant a James-led sequel. But does the 2021 version surpass the original, and does that lend credence to James' side in the ongoing Lebron vs. Jordan debate? Enter: Rotten Tomatoes.
Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes has drawn valid criticism from all facets of viewership in the last several years, but it has inarguably changed the film production and exhibition landscape since its inception in 1998. The website collects information from a large pool of reviews, distilling them into a critics' core (the "Tomatometer") and an audience score, each expressed as a percentage. This distillation process erases more nuanced critique and can result in imprecise, and at times downright inaccurate, scores. These can prove damaging to a film's bottom line if timed poorly in relation to release windows, and so valid arguments have been levied at the site on behalf of challenging films that may not satisfy on first viewing. Fortunately for the purposes of this comparison, neither Space Jam reaches this threshold.
Space Jam: A New Legacy currently stands at 31% on the Tomatometer, with an audience score of 81%. Comparatively, the 1996 original Space Jam earned 44% and 63% for each of its metrics. Neither of these approaches the 60% Tomatometer score to avoid the "rotten" designation, nor do they come close to the necessary criteria to be "certified fresh." It is also noteworthy that Space Jam predates the RT platform by a couple of years, and therefore didn't endure the Rotten Tomatoes score fluctuation now common to heralded releases like Wonder Woman 1984 in its early days of exhibition.
Based solely on these numbers, it's clear that audiences have favored the new, while critics prefer the old. It may be tempting to declare Lebron the winner in this box office battle, these are hardly substantial margins between hardly definitive metrics. The original Space Jam was criticized for its nonsensical plot, odd pacing, and overreliance on celebrity, but as a piece of cultural iconography (and merchandising opportunity), it far surpassed its cinematic potential. Space Jam: A New Legacy offers no such compensation for its own flaws. This will almost certainly cause A New Legacy to fade while Space Jam endures in the collective consciousness.
The Rotten Tomatoes score of Space Jam: A New Legacy will almost certainly continue to fluctuate, as the film has yet to pass the two-week mark since debuting in theaters and on HBO Max. Given Warner Bros. minority ownership of the RT platform, there remains the chance the studio could have some influence on the film's positive score in its early stages of exhibition, which could prove integral to its box office performance. Nevertheless, critics seem to favor the original over Space Jam: A New Legacy, and only time will tell which reigns supreme.