'Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle' Review

22 years after the much-loved Jumanji, its sequel, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle has released in theatres. Despite attracting controversy with its announcement, and many (myself included) doubting that the film would be much to behold, Welcome to the Jungle proves itself to be a worthy successor that lives up to the fun and excitement of the original.

Welcome to the Jungle is also quite a different film to the original. Instead of exotic animals from another world invading ours, people from our world (unintentionally) journey into theirs, and instead of a Jumanji being a board game, it's now a video game. Things like this make up one of the film's greatest strengths; rather than a re-hash, Welcome to the Jungle is its own thing, in major ways a complete reversal. Yet, it still incorporates plot and style elements from the original in entertaining and touching ways.

This time around, Jumanji's "adventurers" are four high-school kids. There's the nerdy, unconfident Spencer (Alex Wolff), the popular, Instagram-obsessed Bethany (Madison Iseman), the low-grade achiever, great at sports jock Fridge (Ser'Darius Blain), and the academic and emotionally closed-off Martha (Morgan Turner). 

Due to various reasons, the group find themselves brought together in detention, and after being given the monotonous task of organising the school basement, the four happen upon an old (fictional, though it looks like an Atari 2600) game system, with a game to boot: Jumanji. After selecting their characters, the four are sucked into the game and find themselves in not only a new world, but new bodies, each being turned into their chosen characters. 

This is where Dwayne Johnson (Spencer), Jack Black (Bethany), Kevin Hart (Fridge), and Karen Gillan (Martha) come in. The four, physically, portray the varied protagonists of the game, but mentally, they're the same four high school kids as before. While the teenage characters may be largely modern stereotypes, a lot of fun in the film comes from seeing how the "kids" in the jungle react to being completely out of their individual elements. Each member of the star-studded group individually portray this to great effect, and they play off of each other excellently throughout also. Seeing how they deal with issues they brought over from the real world is also entertaining, and makes for some good relatable moments (who can't relate to being an awkward teenager, after all?). While only being in the film for maybe 20 minutes, the actors portraying the teenage selves (both physically and mentally) also do so convincingly, and effectively. 

The four stumble across Nick Jonas' character in the game, and it's through him that some of the film's most emotional moments occur, and he plays these, and off of the rest of the group well (particularly so with Bethany/Jack Black). Villain-wise, however, the film could be stronger. Similarly to many of the superhero films of today, the big bad (played by Bobby Cannavale) is kind of just there. Yeah, he's menacing (though shown as such to the point of cliché), and he and his army prove a substantial threat to our good guys, but he's nothing special. A threat for the sake of a threat. This isn't much of a detractor, however, as the main group, and how well they play off of each other is more than enough to keep everything entertaining and engaging. This also helps to balance the fact that the main plot on offer here is nothing particularly complex or thought-provoking.

Remember how Jumanji's now a video game? This presents itself as more than just a premise, actually weaving into the plot, and humour, in major ways. As with the original, to end the havoc and get back to reality, the four need to complete the game. Furthermore, each "player" only gets three lives, and once they're gone, so is the player. Each player also has their own strengths and weaknesses, similarly to how class types function. Utilising these, they work together and travel to different areas in the world, which are themselves presented as levels. Other typical game elements, such as cutscenes, and NPC characters, are woven in and used for humour, entertainingly so. Always nice to see games portrayed effectively (God knows there's been many times they haven't. Looking at you, Sandler). 

The game is essentially a character in itself, and its realised here as a diverse environment full of threats, including in the wildlife, terrain (both of these shown with some good CGI), and the hordes of enemy grunts working for the villain. It's a beautiful, interesting world, though don't expect to really learn much about the world of Jumanji other than what it looks like, as the main focus here is escape. That's fine, though, as the world works great, even if presented at face value.

Some plot elements tread familiar territory from the original, and while I won't go into spoiler territory, the reversal in setting gives these moments a fresh perspective and makes it feel as if we're not just watching what we've seen before. Plus, some of these are the most emotional moments of the film, but the difference in presentation helps them work. Another touching moment comes from (and again without going into direct spoilers) a shoutout to Robin William's character from the original. It acts as a nice little tribute to him, not feeling cheap or shoehorned in whatsoever. 

Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, above all else, is simply a lot of fun. Great performances and chemistry, an abundance of hilarity, and an original take on the Jumanji premise combine to make Welcome to the Jungle a more than worthy successor to the 22-year-old classic.