Review of Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (2017) by Andrew%20 D — 03 Feb 2018

One of the funniest movies I've seen in a long time. Jack Black is a more convincing highschool girl than most teenage girl actors. Dwayne Johnson delivers a surprisingly strong and self-aware performance, and Kevin Hart is being Kevin Hart so if you like him in anything else you'll like him here. The movie does a great job of unashamedly including every action movie trope every and making it very obvious it was done on purpose. It's campy, it's fun, it's got a surprising amount of character and charm to it, and it's just a joy to watch.

My two gripes are that I wish they played up the video game theme just a little more. It kind of fades in and out of focus during the movie. Sometimes, it's obvious and fun and you can tell the writers have played old-school action games like Tomb Raider. Other times the movie kind of forgets, especially when the focus shifts to the characters.

Also, the CGI is a bit below 2018 expectations, and they missed a great opportunity to make a joke about bad graphics.

Other than that, super fun movie. Not the most groundbreaking movie, but just a good time for all.