this is a movie for kids so the rewatch as an adult was a little less delightful than the nostalgia of it is. still, it's cute. i will say the number of times that r kelly's i believe i can fly played didn't age well.

also, for 1996 the way that the movie's effects were rendered was really enjoyable! it's nowhere near what cgi does now, but it was never that hard to suspend disbelief about the real characters interacting with cartoons.

one major con—the pacing of the movie is much worse than i remembered. granted, i was 7 when i saw it. but there are a lot of jarring moments where scenes cut out and jokes occur without any lead up or even context.

i watched this ahead of the sequel just for a refresher and i've already read that a major point of contention for the new one is the amount of product placement, but like... first of all, this is what capitalism is, it's the commodification of literally everything and that includes entertainment. but more importantly, i have a feeling there are a lot more applicable products to give advertising rights to in 2020 than there were in 1996? like, they definitely advertised themselves (wb) and namedropped things like nike and gatorade plenty, and the nba got a lot of exposure in terms of non sports fans. i also had the world's cutest space jam chuck taylors as a kid so even if they didn't rely heavily on the product placement in 96 they more than made up for it in merchandising.