JUMANJI: WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE REVIEW

*MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS*

It's been over twenty years since Jumanji was released. The film focused on the titular board game that brings chaos to those who dare rolled the dice. In 1969, a young boy was sucked into the game where he had to remain until a player rolled a six or an eight on the dice. Unfortunately, it look twenty six years for that to happen, with the help of the two children, Judy (Kirsten Dunst) and Peter (Bradley Pierce), who had move into his house. Now an adult, Alan Parrish (Robin Williams) has to complete the game to get rid of all the destruction that the game has caused. Despite being critically panned, it was still a hit at the box office, earning over $260 million. Now, twenty two years later, a sequel has been released with the subtitle Welcome To The Jungle.

When four high-school kids, nerdy Spencer (Alex Wolff), football player Fridge (Ser'Darius Blain), popular, self-obsessed Bethany (Madison Iseman) and shy Martha (Morgan Turner), discover an old video game console with a game they've never heard of - Jumanji - they are immediately drawn into the game's jungle setting, literally becoming the avatars they chose: Spencer becomes a brawny adventurer, Dr Smolder Bravestone (Dwayne Johnson); Fridge loses (in his words) "the top two feet of his body" and becomes zoologist, Moose Finbar (Kevin Hart); Bethany becomes a middle-aged male professor, Professor Sheldon 'Shelly' Oberon (Jack Black); and Martha becomes a badass warrior, Ruby Roundhouse (Karen Gillan). What they discover is that you don't just play Jumanji - you must survive it. To beat the game and return to the real world, they'll have to go on the most dangerous adventure of their lives and change the way they think about themselves - or they'll be stuck in the game forever.

Before Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, I did have my doubts. I didn't think there should be a sequel to the original 1995 film as it works well on its own. However, the filmmakers and the actors involved said that it was a 'reimagining' of the first film and a tribute to the late Williams who tragically passed away in 2014. If I'm being honest, I think that this was just an excuse as Williams' character, Alan Parrish, is only briefly mentioned once in the middle of the film. I think that the film would've worked better if it was based on a different video game instead of associating it with Jumanji. 

However, despite this, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle is still fairly entertaining and works as a fast-paced adventure with a lot of humour and action. The problem is that it pales in comparison to the original which is one of my favourite films. 

The performances from the four leads are all solid. Johnson is known for his wrestling alter-ego, 'The Rock' and for appearing in action films such as the Fast and Furious franchise. However, recently, he has transitioned to more comedic roles in films such as Central Intelligence. Initially, I was a bit skeptical about his performance but, surprisingly, he gives a convincing performance as a young, nerdy boy trapped in a muscular man's body. His Central Intelligence co-star Kevin Hart also gives a good performance. However, for me, Karen Gillian and Jack Black gave the best performances of the four. Gillian is best known for appearing as Amy Pond in the sci-fi series, Doctor Who from 2010 until 2012 and has recently appeared in both of the Guardians Of The Galaxy films as Nebula. Gillian proves that she's capable of handling comical roles as she embodies that of an awkward teenager stuck in a body she's not familar with. However, no one does comedy better than Black who has the toughest challenge: convincing audiences that he's a teenage girl stuck in the body of an overweight, middle-aged man. Fortunately, he succeeds and gives the most memorable role. He and Gillian have a great scene where he teaches her how to flirt. Nick Jonas seems out of place at first, considering he's a famous pop star, however, he soon settles in naturally to his role as Alex, someone who's been stuck in the board game.

One of the weakest aspects of the original Jumanji was the special effects but, for me, they were easily overlooked as it was the mid 1990s, a time where technology wasn't as advanced as it is now, and the crew were working on a tight budget. This is why I think that the criticism towards the effects in the original is unfair. The computer-generated imagery is obviously an improvement over the original and the set design is impressive. Because Jumanji is now a video game, the players are sucked into the game and end up in the jungle. We finally get to see what the world of Jumanji is like. Visually, the sequel looks a lot better than the original. 

The characters in the game all have different abilities and weaknesses, just like they would in a normal video game. Those who have played games will understand the frustration of completing a level and having characters repeat their dialogue. This is cleverly shown in Welcome To The Jungle. As Spencer, who is an obsessive gamer, explains, the game characters all have lines that they're programmed to repeat until the character says the right thing. Each character also has three lives which makes the task of completing the game even harder. The stunts involved, especially with Ruby's 'dance fighting' are over-the-top but they're supposed to be as it's meant to be a video game. There's also an exhilarating sequence that involves the characters inside a helicopter, piloted by Alex, that is being chased by a stampede. A lot of films inspired by video games have failed, including Assassin's Creed which was released at the beginning of this year, however, despite being based on a fictional game, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle succeeds at being entertaining.

The main villain of the original Jumanji was a hunter, Van Pelt, who returns in this sequel, albeit portrayed by a different actor, Bobby Cannavale. Unfortunately, while Van Pelt was a menacing villain in the original, in the sequel, there's not enough scenes to make him conflicting enough. Sure, he looks evil so we know he's the villain and he's given a bit of a backstory, however, he's fairly weak. This is why the ending feels a bit anti-climatic. The task for the four characters is to return a jewel, that Van Pelt had stolen, back to a mountain. There isn't any sense of danger in this final scene and it's all resolved fairly quickly which led to me thinking: oh, is that it? The majority of the film was entertaining so I guess the writers, Chris McKenna, Erik Sommers, Scott Rosenberg and Jeff Pinkner just failed to come up with a satisfying ending.

Although Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle works well as a fast-paced adventure, it suffers in comparison to the original. I think that it would've been better as a stand-alone film that's based on a different game. This is what I liked about Zathura, the 2005 film that's based on a book by Chris Van Allsburg who also wrote Jumanji. It was described as 'Jumanji in space' but wasn't a direct sequel as they're two different films by the same writer. 

Overall, with four strong performances from its leading actors, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle is a fast-paced adventure film that is a solid follow-up to the 1995 original.

7/10