Summary:
Once again, people are sucked into the world of Jumanji, and they must fight to escape.
My Thoughts:
I enjoyed “Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle” far more than I ever expected I would. While it is far from a perfect movie, “Welcome to the Jungle” is one of the more fun family-friendly comedies to come out in the past few years; the actors had great chemistry, the jokes were surprisingly witty, and the story took an old concept and updated it in a way that worked pretty well. I’ve watched “Welcome to the Jungle” a few times now, and while “Jumanji: The Next Level” wasn’t particularly high on my list of things to see, ever since Celebration Cinema has released their VIP Movie Club pass thingy I’ve been willing to see whatever anyone wants to see. I didn’t have high hopes that this film would even be as funny as the first entry, but I did expect to get a few chuckles out of it.
“Did I die and turn into a small muscular boy scout?”
A year or so after the events of “Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle”, Spencer (Alex Wolff, “Hereditary”) is sucked back into the game and his friends Bethany (Madison Iseman, “Annabelle Comes Home”), Fridge (Ser’Darius Blain, “Star Trek Into Darkness”), and Martha (Morgan Turner, “Invincible”) attempt to rescue him by playing the game themselves, only this time the game malfunctions and instead of pulling in Bethany, the game pulls in Spencer’s grandfather Eddie (Danny DeVito, “LA Confidential”) and Eddie’s friend Milo (Danny Glover, “Sorry to Bother You”). When the friends arrive in Jumanji they realize that the game has change; there are new rules, new landscapes, new allies like Ming (Awkwafina, “The Farewell”) and a new villain named Jugen the Brutal (Rory McCann, “Solomon Kane”)
One of the things that made the original “Jumanji” work so well was the fish-out-of-water element. When the characters arrived in the world they had to learn the rules, and no one was the wiser. There’s a fair amount of hilarity the characters not understanding what’s going on, getting used to the rules, even getting used to their new bodies (Jack Black as Bethany was the standout of the previous film in my opinion). In this film, two of the characters don’t know the rules of the world (Eddie and Milo), but they have other people there to explain what the rules are and what they have to do in order to progress the game forward. In terms of story progression, it moves the film along a little more quickly so that the characters know what their goal is and how to accomplish it, but in terms of humor, I felt like this entry was actually lacking a bit.
Another problem this film had is that it devoted most of its runtime to the action sequences instead of more comedic ones. I didn’t go to see Jumanji because I thought the dirt bike chase scenes were going to be awesome, I went to Jumanji because I liked the chemistry between the four leads. There were probably five or so action/chase scenes, and every time those scenes started to play out I started to loose interest.
Another problem this film had is that it was so incredibly similar to the first film in many aspects. OF course, this film needed to incorporate some elements from the first movie, but this film followed the exact same beats, to the point where the end goal was almost exactly the same as the first one (take a jewel to a specific place). While they did change up some of the rules of the world (allowing characters to swap between bodies), those changes weren’t enough to make me feel as if this film provided anything new; the plot, like many of the jokes, just felt tired and rehashed.
Verdict:
I didn’t have high hopes for this film, but it didn’t meet even my rather low expectations. I don’t think this is a total waste of time, but I also don’t think it’s particularly brilliant. “The Next Level” is really just a watered down version of “Welcome to the Jungle”, but if you’re a huge fan of the first, there might be a few things you really like here. This ending does set up for a sequel, and based on the box office numbers this last weekend I wouldn’t be too terribly surprised if we see “Jumanji III” hitting theaters in a few years.
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