Al-G Rhythm

Al-G Rhythm is the main antagonist of Warner Animation Group's 9th feature film Space Jam: A New Legacy, the stand-alone sequel to the 1996 animated/live-action film Space Jam.
He is a malicious and deceitful computer algorithm who rules the Serververse, a virtual reality in the cyber space which houses different worlds based on Warner Bros. properties. When he kidnaps Dominic "Dom" James, the son of LeBron James, Al-G Rhythm forces LeBron to play a basketball game with the Looney Tunes against the Goon Squad. He is the former boss of Pete as well as the archenemy of both LeBron and Dominic, alongside their friend Bugs Bunny.
He was portrayed by Don Cheadle, who also played Snoop in Out of Sight and Raava in Secret Invasion.
==Personality==
At first glance, Al-G is a hardworking sentient AI algorithm who wishes to be recognized for his hard work at the Warner Brothers servers. He also seems to show sadness over how no one ever acknowledges what he does.
Al-G is shown to be quite manipulative and deceiving, as he easily convinces Dom that his father was more interested in basketball than him and used his technology to lure people into the server and create the Goon Squad. Even before the events of the film, he persuades the Tunes (except for Bugs) to leave Tune World and explore the other worlds in the Serververse, much to Bugs' sadness.
He is arrogant and narcissistic as he took a liking to Dom when he praised the ad that he made when not even the executives at Warner Brothers would (because LeBron didn't like it and they did not want to look foolish). This adds to his short temper as he becomes incredibly angry when things do not go his way or if others disagree with him. This brought his somewhat father-son relationship with Dom to an end after the Goon Squad begins to lose to the Tune Squad in the second half of the game and after LeBron apologized to him.
Al-G is also revealed to be a hypocrite. After Dom leaves to play with his father and the tunes after reconciling with him, he takes his place on the Goon Squad and transforms into a giant, muscular basketball player. He then bends the rules of the game and cheats by rewinding the points the Tune Squad scores and breaking past LeBron. When Bugs uses a move that temporarily glitches the game at the cost of his life and Dom throws a jump pad so his father can score the final point, Al-G screams "That's cheating!" even though he cheated first.
==Biography==
===Past===
Sometime before the events of the film and after the original film, Al-G confronted the Looney Tunes on Tune World. Wanting to separate them in case they get in the way of his future goals, he offers them the chance to explore different worlds in the Serververse. All of the Tunes, except for Bugs, are excited and accept it. They then leave Tune World in a rocket and ignore Bugs as he attempts to convince them to stay. He then watches in sadness as they leave. it is possible Al-G may have been around for as long as Warner Bros. was, or at least as long as they had AI.
===Space Jam: A New Legacy===
In the film, Al-G becomes self-aware of his nature as an artificial intelligence and desires for recognition from the world. He plans to team up with LeBron James and show his technology, Warner 3000, a state-of-the-art product of Warner Bros. Studios that places celebrities in popular Warner Bros. Movies, to the public in order to achieve this goal. During the trip to the studios, LeBron rejects the idea of joining Warner 3000, seeing it as a detriment to his basketball career. Furious at being rejected and humiliated, Al-G lures LeBron's son Dom to the server room, where LeBron follows him. Then Al-G kidnaps both of them to the Serververse. Holding Dom captive, Al-G mask a deal with LeBron of playing a basketball game, and if he loses the game he will be forced to stay in there forever. Al-G has his assistant Pete to send LeBron to the Tune World.
LeBron then meets Bugs Bunny, the only remaining resident of the world. Bugs revealed that Al-G took all of his friends away to the other worlds. LeBron then started his journey of finding Bugs' friends, such as Daffy, Yosemite Sam, Wile E. Coyote, etc., which also involved with stealing Marvin's spaceship to travel around the Serververse.
Meanwhile, Rhythm manipulates Dom into turning against his own father by creating the Goon Squad and upgrading himself as an unstoppable basketball player.
LeBron and Bugs successfully find their friends and assemble the Tune Squad. Despite Bugs' objections, LeBron insists on teaching them the fundamentals of basketball. The Tune Squad then meet Al-G and the Goon Squad, led by Dom, to further the stakes, Al-G livestreams the game and abducted the countless viewers into the virtual world, which included LeBron's family, and if they lose the game, the viewers will get to stay in here forever with the Tunes being deleted permanently. As Dom appears, LeBron tries to warn him that AL-G is lying to him, but Dom refuses to believe him, thinking AL-G Rhythm is his friend, as AL-G manipulates him again how LeBron still doesn't appreciate him as a basketball player now.
As the Goon Squad dominate the first half of the game, LeBron and his friends start planning a way to beat them. At one point, Sylvester suggested recruiting the former member Michael Jordan (the protagonist of the first film); however, it turns out he got Michael B. Jordan instead of the player. Although, Sylvester states that it’s been 25 years and he thought Michael Jordan aged gracefully. Realizing his mistake, LeBron allows Bugs to devise the strategy of using cartoon physics in the second half of the game. As the Looney Tunes gained the upper hand, LeBron eventually apologizes to Dom for interfering with his dreams, and Dom forgives his father by joining the Tune Squad and after finding out his dad was right about AL-G Rhythm when he berated Dom for failing to get more points, selfishly saying that being himself was a mistake and finally seeing now that AL-G was never his friend and that he only cares about himself.
Angry and disappointed by Dom's betrayal and abandonment, Al-G takes control of the game and turns himself into a 10 ft. basketball player ready to defeat the Toon Squad in the final seconds. During the third half Lola scores a point but AL-G cheats by taking two points away. Not letting the Tunes win at all by any means necessary. Dom then realizes the only way to win the game and defeating Al-G is to use the move that LeBron had done in his video game which caused it to glitch out. With the cost of being erased, LeBron proposed to do it, but instead Bugs sacrificed himself to do the move and weakened the Goon Squad.
In the last stand and with seconds left, Al-G loses control of the game and desperately tries to grab LeBron and prevent him from dunking the ball, but Dom tosses an extra jump boost to his father allowing him to literally "posterize" Al-G before being shredded by Pete, deleting him and the Goon Squad once and for all.
==Trivia==
*His name is an evident pun on "algorithm".
*In contrast to Mr. Swackhammer, the main antagonist of the original Space Jam film, Al-G Rhythm is a live-action character, whereas Swackhammer is an animated character. Interestingly, Swackhammer was originally planned to be a live-action character as well before it was decided he'd be an animated one to save time.
**Despite Al-G being a live action character, he reveals to have an animated form during his first presentation with LeBron and Dom James.
***It is unclear what sorts of situations he uses his animated form for, apart from presentations. He may use this form to chat with animated characters in the Serververse, something he didn’t do with the Looney Tunes. But as the Looney Tunes were used to seeing people and characters in live action form, he didn’t really need to use his animated form.
*When Bugs and LeBron try to recruit Lola Bunny for their basketball game, she rejects their offer at first while stating that she's been training under Wonder Woman for years. This means that Al-G separated the Tunes quite some time ago.
*Al-G is the second main antagonist in a Looney Toons-centric movie to be a live-action character (not including Judge Doom, as he counts as a Disney-owned character), after Mr. Chairman from Looney Tunes: Back in Action.
**Like his previous main antagonist predecessors he also spied on his enemies on the screen monitor while aiding with five members and wishing to enslave/imprison either the tunes or all of humanity.
*If Al-G successfully won the game and deleted the tunes, they would have just reappeared alive and well after a short time, as Bugs sacrificed himself only to reappear at the end of the film in the real world due to him stating that "he's a toon" and that "he can survive anything". It's possible that Al-G didn't know about this.
**However, things could have transpired in a different way since Bugs was thought to be deleted by performing a glitch, while Al-G could have deleted the Tune Squad the same way the Goon Squad was deleted when they lost the game.
**Originally, Al-G was revealed to have survived deletion after he lost to LeBron, but this scene was eventually deleted from the film.
*Daffy's nickname for him, "Son of a glitch" is a play on the classic insult "Son of a B----H"
Category:Male
Category:Humans
Category:Villains
Category:Looney Tunes characters
Category:Antagonist