"It's Alan's house, I'm just living in it."
A long time ago, in the distant year of 1995, a film (starring the much beloved and dearly missed Robin Williams) was made about a board game with the power to alter and change our reality. It quickly became a beloved classic for kids that grew up in that decade. Now, twenty-seven years later, a sequel/update has been released. The game beckons to us, jungle drums pound, it's time to play Jumanji once again.
Jumanji: Welcome To The Jungle is actually a direct sequel to the 1995 film. Set in present day, we follow nerdy and panophobic (which means fear of everything) Stephen (Alex Wolff), popular phone obsessed Bethany (Madison Iseman), shy and awkward Martha (Morgan Turner), and football star Fridge (Ser'Darius Blaine). When all wind up sharing a detention class together, they uncover Jumanji (Now an old 90's video game console. Don't worry, it's all explained in the set-up.). Bored, they decide to play it and are quickly sucked into the harsh, unforgiving jungle of Jumanji, discovering they have been morphed into the avatars they chose once they arrive (Stephen is Dr. Smolder Bravestone as portrayed by Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Bethany is Professor Shelly Olberon as portrayed by Jack Black, Martha is Ruby Roundhouse as portrayed by Karen Gillan, and Fridge is Franklin "Mouse" Finbar as portrayed by Kevin Hart). Stuck in Jumanji, the four teens must band together and beat the game if they are to ever return to the real world.
Jumanji: Welcome To The Jungle is a clever inversion of the first film. Whereas in the first movie, the game brings the world of Jumanji into the real world, in this sequel our characters get trapped in the world of the game (much like Robin Williams' Alan Parrish in the original. I really like getting to explore the world that Alan was stuck in for twenty-six years here). In the first Jumanji, Van Pelt (the villain, as played by Jonathan Hyde) is a crazed, power hungry big game hunter. In this sequel, our villain is once agin Van Pelt (played this go-around by Bobby Cannavale, who is appropriately intimidating but isn't as memorable as the original Van Pelt), but now he's morphed along with the game. He's an explorer who can control the animals of Jumanji and is obsessed with a green gem that gave him this ability (He still retains some traits of the original Van Pelt. He's still power hungry, crazy, over-the-top, and his whole schtick still involves animals). We also get a lot of jungle drums pounding away, and some nice moments of rhyme. It's also explained early on that Jumanji morphed itself into a video game in an attempt to trick more kids and teens into playing it, and this sequel starts off right where the first film ended: With Jumanji washed ashore on a beach, still in it's old board game form (which was impressively recreated, I must say). Also, yes, there is one very brief nod to Alan Parrish in one scene.
The plot of Jumanji: Welcome To The Jungle is admittedly pretty thin. Luckily, our four main adult leads (Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Jack Black, Kevin Hart, and Karen Gillan) all do great jobs and make their characters likable (as for our teen leads, they don't get a whole lot of screen time, and the opening portion featuring them is pretty generic and boring. That said, they each do fine jobs). They each start out with three lives, and I was genuinely worried about them each time they lost a life. What propels Jumanji: Welcome To The Jungle forward is not just it's humor (which is actually pretty strong here) but also how it treats our main characters. Each of our protagonists gets to grow and advance throughout the film, and our adult actors were all convincing portraying teens stuck in adult bodies. I'd say Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Jack Black, and Nick Jonas (as Jefferson "Seaplane" McDonough, the avatar for Alex who was the first victim of Jumanji in it's video game form) were the most impressive. I had a lot of fun watching The Rock and Jack Black play against type, and Jonas got to show some real emotion while still playing a bad-ass adventurer.
I grew up watching Jumanji, and not only do I consider it quite a cool film, it's also one of my favorite movies of the late-great Robin Williams. Jumanji: Welcome To The Jungle carefully hands down my beloved reality-altering game to a new generation, while still staying faithful to the original film. I wasn't expecting much out of this update, but I am surprised to say I loved it. Jumanji: Welcome To The Jungle is likely the best surprise of 2017. It's a super funny, impressive film that uses strong characters, strong performances, and heartfelt messages/themes to make itself one of the better sequels/updates in recent years (and yes, since this is technically a video game movie, it gets to play around with some video game tropes as well).
4 STARS
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