Review of Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (2017) by Alex C — 07 Feb 2018

Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle is an entertaining movie that picks up where the original left off, albeit this time as a comedy. While overall I found it enjoyable, the movie did often forget that it was a Jumanji film, and the e them play in other films. Hart is still funny playing himself, but the real stars are the other Dwayne Johnson who plays a shy and insecure boy (compared to buff an confident), Jack Black who plays a "pretty girl" who is obsessed with appearance and Instagram fame, and Karen Gillan who plays a nerdy girl who is awkward and insecure. Tworld of Jumanji falls to the sidelines.

While is obvious from the trailers, this time the game of Jumanji is played in the form of the video game. Each character in the movie is playing a high-school aged persona, very different from the characters that each actor generally plays in films. To this end, is the main entertainment that the film brings, and is also my biggest complaint.

While I enjoyed watching actors play characters that are out of their element, the movie was more about the actors playing atypical roles for themselves, and less about the world of Jumanji. This was my biggest problem with the movie. You are watching a variation of "13 Going on 30", "Change Up", or "Freaky Friday" more than you are a sequel to Jumanji.

The longer the movie continues, the less the movie is about the world of Jumanji. By the third act of the film, the world of Jumanji is no more than a backdrop for the actors to continue goofing around and trying to sloppily wrap the story up with a good moral for the kids in the audience. We only really experience the world of Jumanji through 4 specific challenges, where each main character has their moment to shine as they are tailor-built to accomplish the challenge.

The movie is predictable, and the animals, events, and challenges the actors face in the world of Jumanji are not as deep as the original film. The challenges are pretty easy and the actors make their way through it with relative ease. The introduction of a villain in this film was unnecessary, as overcoming the game should be more than enough conflict for our heroes (as it was in the first film), to interest and satisfy the audience. The villain was weak to the point of being forgettable (one of my friends actually forgot about this character completely).

While the action/adventure portion of the film never grows legs, the comedy portion of the movie is where it really shines. Each actor and actress did a great job at playing characters that are out of their element and they are visibly enjoying doing so on-screen. Kevin Hart is the one actor who failed to really embrace his alternate persona (he plays the buff sports jock), as he defaults to the standard Kevin Hart routine of being black and being short jokes. Basically Kevin Hart plays himself, while the other actors really play something unique from what you sehese three do incredible jobs performing outside of their element and are really the stars of the show.

Don't go into Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle expecting it to be an action-adventure as you will leave disappointed. However it does succeed at being a comedy and was still an incredibly entertaining time at the movies and will be a movie that adults and kids can watch together and have a great time.

As a word of caution: this film is advertised as a family film, and keeps the gore to be non-existent (when people die they just dissapear, you don't ever see blood or gore). However there is a fair amount of adult language and adult jokes in the movie, making it hard to recommend for anyone with young children. Several jokes of male parts, several are drawn out significantly (Jack Black's character is technically a woman and spends about 90-120 seconds of screen time experiencing being a man for the first time). There are several similar comments/remarks/jokes throughout where she refers to her new-found body parts.