Can someone please tell movie makers that high school and high school students are no longer like it was when The Breakfast Club came out! PLEASE!!!! I have first-hand experience with students in classrooms, and can tell you that nerds and jocks and the pretty girls no longer are exclusively that. It wasn’t even like that 10 years ago when I was in high school. Yes, kids are assholes. But they are no longer one-dimensional assholes who only know one way of life.
They are athletic computer scientists who listen to alternative music while playing Pokemon GO and going to J. Cole concerts. The movie begins stuck in 1995 with all the ridiculous high school movie tropes of which you can think. luckily, once you’re in the game it finds itself becoming a pretty damn fun time.
Jumanji: Welcome to The Jungle follows the journey of Spencer (Alex Wolff), Fridge (Ser’Darius Blain), Martha (Morgan Turner), and Bethany (Madison Iseman) as they are sucked into the game that entrapped Robin Williams and Kirsten Dunst over 20 years ago. This time, the game has adapted to the modern times as “no one plays board games anymore” (another stereotype that really isn’t true, or is that just my age showing?). While in detention, the quadruplet finds a Jumanji video game and are sucked into its virtual world as the adult avatars they chose. Nerdy, timid Spencer becomes the muscle-bound Dr. Smolder Bravestone (Dwayne Johnson), football star Fridge (they seriously never say his real name) becomes speed and height averse zoologist Mouse Finbar (Kevin Hart), phone obsessed mean girl Bethany turns into out of shape paleontologist Shelly Oberon (Jack Black), and overanxious school girl Martha turns into the killer of men Ruby Roundhouse (Karen Gillan). They have to pass all the levels of the game before their 3 lives run out in order to get back home.
I would have to say that this is the best video game movie ever made (not hard though really). Even though it is not an actual video-game adaptation, it is the best adaptation of what video games really are (or at least were over the past 10 to 20 years). The repetitive computer players, the level ascension, the cut scenes, everything that is the foundation of video games. This plays out as some of the funniest and most entertaining parts of the movie. The other is the foursome of Jumanji. The Rock plays hilariously as a formerly bullied kid in a grown man’s body (he had great practice in Central Intelligence). He was vulnerable and genuinely surprised as he grew into strengths. Kevin Hart does what he does best, plays Kevin Hart. These two have become great counterparts in their movies together. Yet, Karen Gillan and Jack Black are the best of the group. Gillan mirrors Johnson in playing a beautiful bad ass who doesn’t believe that she is. But she does it more naturally and funnier than he does. Lastly, this might be some of the best work Black has done in a while. He goes back to what made him popular in his early days, playing outlandish characters while still being endearing. He happens to play an excellent high school teenage girl.
When Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle was first announced, I know a lot of people were very worried they would ruin their childhoods. Luckily the movie doesn’t try to be a remake. Instead, it pays homage with subtle easter eggs that tug at the heart strings a bit. But this movie is far from the original. While the 1995 masterpiece (YEP I SAID IT) was the perfect mix of adventure, humor, and drama, this movie was a lot of adventure, some haphazard humor, and a bit of forced drama. It’s missing the heart that the original had. The callousness in which some of the characters treated each other’s lives was questionable. The movie tried to lay forth a “be yourself, and live your best life” message that at times hit and at times didn’t. It didn’t work when the characters gave thought to ideas or made choices which kept them as one-dimensional as they were before they entered the game. It did work when they followed up this message with irreverent humor. That’s where the movie shines. It doesn’t take itself too seriously and lets the audience have an enjoyable experience watching a fun movie. Go see this movie looking to have fun and you will. That’s why I give Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle 6.5/10 intensively smoldering looks.
RIP to the Man, the Legend that is Mr. Robin Williams