Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (2017)

Starring: Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart, Jack Black, Karen Gillan, Nick Jonas, Bobby Cannavale, Colin Hanks, Missy Pyle, and Tim Matheson
Grade: A

I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed this unwanted sequel. Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle not only resurrected this franchise but fixed it and put it on the right track.

Summary

In 1996 in Brantford, New Hampshire, we see the Jumanji board game found on a beach by some guy, as a thumping sound emerges from it. The guy takes it home and gives it to his son, though he’s uninterested because he plays video games. That night when the kid is sleeping, the game turns itself into a game cartridge that fits in his video game system. The thumping sound wakes him, and he notices that it’s coming from Jumanji. After seeing the cartridge, he inserts it into his system and is then sucked into the game.

In the present day, Spencer (Alex Wolff) is a nerdy high school student. Fridge (Ser’Darius Blain), a big-time football player at the school and childhood friend of Spencer, is having him punch up his paper to help his grades, as it’s the only way he can stay on the team. The morning before school, Spencer finishes the paper for him, prints it out, and meets him somewhere to give it to him. Bethany (Madison Iseman) is the pretentious and popular girl of the class. The way we are introduced to her is seeing her work way too hard to take the perfect selfie before school. Spencer and Fridge meet outside of the creepy old guy’s house (Matheson), and Spencer gives Fridge his paper. Fridge just wanted him to proofread it, but Spencer basically re-wrote the whole thing. He wants to rekindle their old friendship, so he asks Fridge if he wants to hangout, but he avoids the question and leaves with some girl. Spencer is then approached by the crazy old man that lives in the house. The guy intimidates Spencer, so he runs away. Bethany, who’s being driven to school by her mom, watches this whole thing from her car as they drive by. In the car, Bethany’s mom expresses her sympathy for what happened to the old man’s family.

At school, Bethany gets detention for talking to her friend on the phone during a quiz. In gym class, the awkward Martha (Morgan Turner) refuses to do some football exercise and then trashes being a gym teacher to the gym teacher (Pyle), earning a detention as well. Spencer smiles as he watches the exchange, as he’s clearly interested in Martha. Shortly after, Spencer is pulled from gym class and sent to the principal’s (Marc Evan Jackson) office where Fridge is already waiting. A teacher has figured out all of the similarities between Fridge’s paper and a paper Spencer wrote the previous year. With the two of them being caught for cheating, they are both sent to detention, and Fridge is kicked off the football team. So now, Spencer, Fridge, Bethany, and Martha are all sent to detention after school. The principal shows them a new room that will be the new computer center of the school, but there are a bunch of things that need to be thrown out, including a serious heap of old magazines. They can’t be recycled however until they are all de-stapled, so that’s what their detention will consist of until they are done. Once the principal leaves, Spencer and Martha get right to work, and Spencer gives her props for talking shit to the gym teacher. Bethany stays on her phone and Fridge looks around the room, wasting time looking at things. He finds an old video game system with the Jumanji video game cartridge already inserted inside of it.

Spencer and Fridge find an old TV in the room and set up the game to see what it’s about. They get to the “Select a Character” part of the game, and Fridge tries to pick the character of pilot Jefferson “Seaplane” McDonough (Jonas), but it’s already been selected. Fridge then picks the next character over. This is zoology expert Franklin “Mouse” Finnbar (Hart). Spencer chooses archaeologist and explorer Dr. “Smolder” Bravestone (Johnson). Bethany joins them and picks cartographer Professor Shelly Oberon (Black), and Martha reluctantly joins and chooses the final character, Ruby Roundhouse (Gillan). Interestingly enough, her job is labeled “killer of men”. For the record, none of the characters have pictures next to them, so this group is picking them based purely off of name and occupation. Anyway, right after Martha joins, Spencer presses start and the thumping from the game begins. As they look around confused, Spencer is sucked into the game, with Fridge, Bethany, and Martha following him right after.

The four officially become the avatar they chose in the “Select a Character” screen, and they are all freaking out. Spencer/Bravestone is the first one to realize they are stuck as their character and are inside the game known as Jumanji. As the four argue, Bethany, now Professor Shelly, is eaten alive by a hippopotamus. As the other three watch in horror, she respawns in the game and flies down from the sky, hitting the ground. After some of Fridge’s, now Mouse’s, zoology expertise comes into play (because that is a skill of the avatar he chose), an NPC (non-playable character) named Nigel Billingsley (Rhys Darby) pick them up in his jeep while they are being chased by more hippos. Next, Nigel explains their characters to them, as an NPC would in a video game cutscene, and tells them the story of Jumanji and their mission. Since he’s an NPC, he has a programmed set of responses and can only respond in so many ways to them. This is where Fridge learns that his character of Mouse is the sidekick of Bravestone, and he carries weapons for him. Here’s the mission as Nigel explains it:

Jumanji is in grave danger, and they are being counted on to lift the curse. Nigel is a guide for Jumanji. He was hired by Bravestone’s former partner and current nemesis in Professor Russell Van Pelt (Cannavale) to lead an expedition. Van Pelt came in search of the Jaguar Shrine, resting place of the Sacred Jewel of Jumanji. He’s been obsessed with the jewel, and he finally found it at one point. He dug it out from the Jaguar Shrine and took it for himself. This is an issue because the Jaguar Shrine watches over Jumanji and anyone that dares mess with it will be consumed by a dark power. Because of this, Van Pelt became a supervillain of sorts, possessing all creatures of Jumanji, with the land being cursed ever since. The power of the jewel is so much that he refused to let it go, despite Nigel’s insistence. One night, as everyone slept, Nigel stole the jewel from a sleeping Van Pelt and escaped. Van Pelt wants the jewel and him and his followers will kill anyone in their path to get it. Nigel then gives Spencer/Bravestone the jewel and tells him that this foursome has to find their way to the Jaguar Shrine and put the jewel back into its place to lift the curse. He also reminds them to call out the name of “Jumanji” when everything is said and done.

Nigel hands them a map of Jumanji. Then, he tells them to go to “The Bizarre” and find the “missing piece” before he drives off. They try not to freak out, but Spencer/Bravestone opens the map and sees that there’s nothing on it. They then find out that Bethany/Shelley is the only one that can read it because one of the avatar’s skills is that of a cartographer. Spencer/Bravestone accidentally hits his chest, and it reveals a pop-up screen depicting his strengths and weaknesses, so the other three do the same, setting up the danger the group will face for the rest of the movie. For the record, Bravestone has no weaknesses. As Bethany/Shelley deciphers the map, they are chased further into the jungle by bad guys on motorcycles. Eventually, they all jump off a cliff into a body of water to elude them. Once they swim out of it, Martha/Ruby realizes she’s been shot and dies, though she immediately respawns like Bethany/Shelley earlier. Spencer realizes that the three bars tattooed on their wrists reveals how many lives they have left. Unfortunately, Bethany/Shelley and Martha/Ruby both only have two left. They can actually die in the game if they lose all three.

Now, they only have one choice if they want to make it back home.

They have to finish this game and save Jumanji by putting the jewel back where it belongs. However, this game is far from easy.

My Thoughts:

Believe me, I was more skeptical than anyone going into this Jumanji reboot/sequel. Reboots in general piss me off but to make things worse, I was already not a fan of the original movie. Well, as usual, I’ll be brutally honest. Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle is the best move of the franchise by far. A close second is the sequel, The Next Level.

Everything was done better in this film. It’s like they kept the imagination of Zathura, retained the jungle theme of the original movie, added more light-hearted humor, and added an all-star cast. That’s pretty much Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle. When you mix this altogether, you get a recipe for success. To start off, the game needed to be updated. Obviously, today’s kids aren’t playing board games much anymore. Video games have been the focus for a while. To modernize everything, the enchanted game turns itself into a game cartridge. Well, that was an easier fix than I thought! Next, we jump to the present day and the dusty old game is found in a storage room at a high school the kids have to clean out. For some reason, finding an old game system amongst the myriad of nostalgic things in this room is very believable. You may ask why a video game system would be there in the first place but for some reason, stuff like this is collected all the time at high schools. It could’ve been donated, a teacher could’ve brought it, a kid could’ve gotten it confiscated, or whatever else. Finding something like this isn’t out of the realm of possibility. I know this doesn’t seem important to note but for me, I felt like this movie had to tread carefully because I couldn’t wait to critique everything about it! It just makes my job easier.

However, everything they did made sense for the story they were trying to tell.

The characters were also written very well. This is important because we know these high school kids are going to be eclipsed by their star avatar counterparts. Even so, I kept imagining these characters inside the bodies of their avatars. For instance, I knew Spencer was inside of Dr. Bravestone. I wasn’t just focused on the star power, which is rare for me. Usually, I would say, “Oh, this is a movie where The Rock teams up with Kevin Hart, Jack Black, and Karen Gillan”. Don’t get me wrong, the star power attracted me to watch the movie in the first place, but the movie was written well enough that I actually focused on the characters. This is really impressive because I’ll be honest, I can easily be swayed by known movie stars being in a film. A lot of the time, I’ll end up forgetting a character’s name or something and just refer to the character as the actor that plays him/her. This was not the case here, and I appreciated it. Plus, the stars really understood their younger actors’ characters very well, translating the young attitudes and inner thoughts of the kids very well onscreen. Dwayne Johnson is a perfect example. He was very funny, absolutely nailing the awkwardness of Spencer, especially when he tries to flirt with Martha/Ruby. Kevin Hart was hilarious, and Jack Black’s portrayal of the popular teenage girl had some legitimate laugh-out moments, though his self-confidence probably took a hit since the script was written around the fact that he’s an out-of-shape old man.

Regardless, one of the funniest scenes in the movie had to have been when he was teaching Martha/Ruby how to flirt. The chemistry of this cast was evident. I guess Johnson and Hart’s chemistry should be expected since they’ve been in quite a few projects together, but their banter isn’t tired just yet. I didn’t think Black and Gillan would fit so seamlessly with them either, but they really did. They all had their moments too. You would think this was all made to turn the project into a Johnson/Hart comedy movie, but it’s not that at all. This was just great ensemble work, and Welcome to the Jungle is actually very funny.

The bit of Fridge/Mouse’s weakness being cake had me dying of laughter too.

For fans of the original, there were a lot of references many would appreciate. Though I didn’t feel like the film’s existence was entirely necessary at times, fans that were furious the movie was being made might actually enjoy it. For instance, if you wanted to know what happened to Alan Parrish’s dad when Alan was lost for all those years in the first Jumanji, they give you a glimpse by seeing what happened to Alex’s father being the miserable old man in town. Additionally, when they meet Alex/Seaplane inside of Jumanji, he takes them back to this hut made up on the outskirts of town. He tells them Alan Parrish created the hut way back when, and he just lives in it now. If you’re a fan, you know Alan Parrish was Robin Williams’s character. Now, though I do appreciate the nod to Williams, this also bothered me at the same time because it almost cheapens what we thought Parrish did in the original. In that first movie, Alan made it seem like he was alone in the jungle fighting every killer animal imaginable, surviving off the land. In this sequel, it’s implied he lived in this world that these video game characters are occupying, which is rather tame in comparison to the one that I was imagining in the first movie, or at least we understood it to be. Honestly, this world is not that bad. Based off of Alan Parrish’s thousand-yard stare, I thought what he went through was hell on Earth, and he had to get through it by himself, but this version of Jumanji has a lot of people and though there are some still trying to kill you, it’s a populated area where you could avoid conflict if you wanted to. Alex/Seaplane is the perfect example of this.

Alan Parrish walked out of the game looking like a step above a caveman but in the current version of the game, everyone looks pretty civilized. It wouldn’t make sense for someone to exile themselves and scavenge off the land. Also, if Alan was technically in this game, he would have had to pick an avatar as well. This doesn’t make sense based off of what we were taught in the first movie in the original board game. In that game, you and you only, are dealing with the problems from the game as soon as you join. Including Alan Parrish’s story in this movie doesn’t fit the story they’re telling here. It’s hard to consider Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle a straight sequel to the original because of this. It’s more of a reimagining or a reboot altogether. So, though fans of the original might like this throwaway line, I wasn’t a fan of this detail as a critic because this irresponsible retcon cheapens the franchise’s foundation.

Going along with paying homage to the original, we also get an updated version of the Van Pelt character from the first film. Though he was less interesting this time around and a bit more generic, his look and presentation was a lot better in this movie. Him having a pet vulture was a nice touch. To really top things off, I would’ve had him wear an eye patch, but you can’t win them all. If I were to note one major fault of this superior sequel, it was clear we were missing one big fight between the main bad guy in Van Pelt and the main good guy in Spencer/Bravestone. I understand that this movie emphasizes the team effort and all that but even in a video game, a big fight between the two main characters has to happen, especially with Van Pelt being Bravestone’s former partner. It’s not a necessity per say because I still enjoyed the ending, but it seemed like this was noticeably missing from the climax. On a side note, praise needs to be given to Nick Jonas’s character of Alex/Seaplane being from the 90s and the teenage characters’ reactions to him. This movie is full of those little well-thought-out details for comedic purposes regarding his character and the others, making the story exciting, nostalgic and somehow fresh at every turn. It adds a lot to the action too because you care for everyone a bit more.

This movie is the light-hearted family adventure film we all needed.

By poking fun at video game tropes (“You can’t just give us a ride to the statue?”), adding interesting and entertaining supporting characters around our main cast, giving us a very heartfelt ending and having solid action and conflict throughout, this is the most complete this franchise has ever felt. Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle is a funny ass sequel that recreates certain elements people liked about the original but does it bigger and better. It’s not as terror-driven as the original either (which is a good thing). It’s the light-hearted fun this series should’ve been from the start. This Jumanji has a better cast, a better script, and has the ability to make all age groups laugh at something.

Finally, a revival that works!