Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle

Four teenagers are sucked into a magical video game, assuming the roles of their avatars:  Dr. Smolder Bravestone (Dwayne Johnson), Professor Sheldon “Shelly” Oberon (Jack Black),  Franklin “Mouse” Finbar (Kevin Hart), and  Ruby Roundhouse (Karen Gillan). The teens must learn to accept themselves and each other to win the game and return home.

Our take: See it in theaters.
Post credit scene? No.

Jumanji somehow ended up being one of the only kid-friendly movies of the holiday. There a few very tastefully-executed penis jokes (yes, strangely, that’s a thing), but there’s nothing you’ll have to explain to your kids on the ride home. And, dare we say, it might even be better than the original. While the plot is fairly predictable, it somehow has the ability to never be boring.

The mechanism of this movie is what makes it great. The video-game format which brought characters into Jumanji rather than bringing Jumunji to them was a strong way to reimagine the original — even though it starts right where the original left off, on a beach in 1996.

Adult actors having to play teenage counterparts never fails to make for a good time, but the cast of this movie perfectly executes those performances. Johnson shines as the shy, nerdy kid but is reserved enough that it doesn’t go overboard. Gillan plays the quiet, intelligent, and fiery outsider turned love interest coping with the loss of the bottom half of her shirt.  Kevin Hart plays the tough-guy athlete coping with the loss of his physical prowess. And Jack Black makes his return to comedy gold in his first good role since School of Rock as the popular blonde ditz who is coping with the loss of her phone.

Johnson and Hart have just as much chemistry as they did in Central Intelligence, and we sincerely wouldn’t mind them starring together in more films. Black did well sharing the screen and taking his place as a sidekick while playing a better teenage girl than most teenage girls do.

When promotional photos of the film first surfaced, there were worries about Gillan’s costume, and she assured people that the movie would explain it. This costume controversy was addressed on screen in that she’s playing a video game avatar which are traditionally under-dressed women but was somewhat lazily handled afterward. Her initial objections are quieted when she tied a jacket around her waist and supposedly solved all of her issues with insecurity. They fell just short of making this satisfying commentary as they wrote it off so quickly, but it’s still not really a major blunder. Every film is allowed missteps.

Not only is the movie funny in a way that it keeps you laughing the second and third time you see it, it also is a great action movie. The fight scenes are good, the rough and tumble jungle traversing intense, and it keeps you on your toes. It’s developed and well thought out as well. They continue to utilize the video game mechanism when they have the opportunity to do so, but it never seems like lazy film-making when they do. From character “weaknesses” to gaming re-spawn points for practical use, this movie was made by people who took a lot of care in their craft.