Action packed film retells classic story

The sequel to Jumanji (1995), Jumanji: Welcome To The Jungle (2017) directed by Jake Kasdan is now in theaters. 23 years since the original movie, there have been many film developments and fantastic movies since then.

Jumanji has a cast full of stars including Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart, Jack Black and Nick Jonas.

The movie begins in 1996 with a man running and finding the original Jumanji board game on the beach and bringing it home for his family. Instead of playing the game, one of his sons (Mason Guccione), plays a video game. At night Jumanji turns itself into a video game. Soon there is the familiar thumping from the Jumanji game which wakes up the boy who proceeds to play the new Jumanji video game and is presumably sucked in.

Fast forward to our century and Spencer (Alex Wolff) completes a school essay for his friend Fridge (Ser’Darius Blain). They meet in front of the ‘freak house’, a broken-down home taken care of by Mr. Vrekke. Later at school Bethany (Madison Iseman) video chats her friend during a quiz and refuses to stop and gets detention. Later, during gym, Spencer admires Martha (Morgan Turner) from a distance as she tries to get out of participating, which earns her detention. The principal soon finds out about how Spencer wrote Fridge’s essay and both students get detention. 

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While in detention the students are forced to remove staples from magazines in the basement. Spencer and Fridge find a video game console and set it up on an old tv. They get ready to play and convince Bethany and Martha to join. They select their characters and try to start playing only to get sucked into the game.  

The students become their selected characters. Spencer becomes Dr. Smolder Bravestone (Dwayne Johnson) in the game who is a muscular archaeologist. Fridge becomes Franklin ‘Moose’ Finbar (Kevin Hart) a zoologist and weapons carrier. Fridge freaks out about being a lot shorter than he is in real life. Martha becomes Ruby Roundhouse (Karen Gillan) ‘killer of men.’ Bethany becomes Dr. Shelly Oberon (Jack Black), a cartographer Bethany thought was a woman due to the description. They all realize that they are in the game and go crazy when they realize what they look like. Soon a hippo emerges behind Bethany and eats her. Then there’s a loud noise and Bethany falls from the sky back to where they are.

Soon they meet an NPC (non playable character) who tells them about the Jaguar’s eye. Spencer’s enemy, Van Pelt (Bobby Cannavale) stole it and the balance in Jumanji was thrown off. After taking the jewel Van Pelt became crazed and gained control over animals. They must figure out where the Jaguar is and restore it before they can go home.

Each player has weaknesses, strengths and three lives which are lost when they die. They discover that there are “levels” to the game and the first level is when they have to fight off Van Pelt’s men. They proceed to the bazaar and recover a clue from a snake.

The movie proceeds with numerous comedic scenes until they meet Jefferson “Seaplane” McDonough (Nick Jonas), whose real name is Alex Vrekke (the original boy from the beginning). Apparently he has been in the game for quite a while without realizing it. 

The rest of the movie is filled with plenty of action that is sure to leave the viewer on the edge of their seat.

Because the sequel had to live up to a legendary movie there was a lot to expect. The CGI graphics were very good, especially with the animals. The jaguars, rhinos, and hippos were extremely realistic. The acting was exceptional throughout the whole movie. All of the actors stayed true to their characters while taking advantage of the comedic scenes.

There were numerous action scenes with lots of combat. Although combat is not something I personally enjoy, they were well acted out. The choreography during action scenes was well timed and resulted in a scenes that were not bloody but still entertaining.

I also enjoyed the tribute to Robin Williams’ character from the original movie. Alex Vrekke’s situation is the same as Alan Parrish’s situation in the first movie. They both have been trapped in the game since they were young and have lost track of time. There were also other similarities between the movies such as the familiar thumping of the Jumanji game.

Also, because the movie was basically reinvented, the plot was unpredictable and every conflict was a surprise. Both the original and the sequel were good in their own right, but the sequel seemed to be tailored to appeal to teens.

During the movie there are some comedic scenes that might seem excessively crass to some viewers. The crass jokes do not really add any comedic value and seem to be put in there just for the sake of Bethany’s character.

Overall the movie was hilarious and definitely is a good watch. Compared to the original movie it is a little disappointing because there was nothing unique about it. All the best parts of the movie can be seen in many other modern movies. If not for the amusing cast the movie would be a dud without much substance.

For more reviews, read New Star Wars movie goes its own way. For another article, read Best selling author speaks about The Girls Of Atomic City.

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