Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle is a 2018 action comedy about four teenagers who are sucked into a magical video game, and the only way they can escape is to work together to finish the game.
Playing to the middle is really all any major movie studio can do to have any kind of success and now with much larger international audiences, that middle has to encompass a lot more with a huge number of hurdles. It’s really no wonder that most blockbusters are generically bland, lacking any substantive dialogue and paint characters in the broadest of terms – all the more easy for anyone from any language or culture to catch on. Here comes Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (now available for download), a sequel of sorts to the popular 1995 children’s adventure film, updated for today’s market. It’s everything I just said and yet, has a kind of charm to it that actually sneaks up on you, making this not so much surpassing expectation, because well, let’s face it, there wasn’t much going in, but delivering plenty of sharp moments and a decent enough story that it merits a deeper look.
The story starts in the 1996, not long after the ending of the first, where a man finds the titular board game half buried in the sand. He brings it to his teenage son, who promptly dismisses it, instead intent on playing video games. The Jumanji game, however, somehow recognizing this, magically modifies itself into a video game cartridge, prompting the kid to give it a try. Problem is, as one does when they play Jumanji – in any iteration – he’s soon sucked into the game, leaving everyone on this side thinking he’s just up and disappeared. It has some rather profound effects on this father … and their house. (This opens up a whole can of worms the movie flat out refuses to get into, turning the father into a sort of neighborhood freak living in a haunted mansion. I have so many questions. But, let’s move on cuz that’s a post of another color.)
Flash forward twenty years and now we’re getting to know four troubled teens dealing with life in the modern world. Spencer Gilpin (Alex Wolff) is your typical geeky gamer nerd with high intelligence and a phobia for everything. He’s doing homework for big football jock Anthony “Fridge” Johnson (Ser’Darius Blain), who doesn’t have time because he needs to practice. The two get caught however and end up in detention with two girl classmates. One is Bethany Walker (Madison Iseman) a hugely-popular but obviously self-centered brat who does video chatting on her phone in the middle of a test (I mean, wow, that’s just ballsy). Then there’s Martha Kaply (Morgan Turner), a no-nonsense student who gets in trouble for objecting to physical education and somehow insulting the PE teacher in the process. Sent down to the basement, they are assigned a menial task (is that legal?), but get distracted by an old video game console stuffed on a shelf with all sorts of other forgotten relics. Guess which game is stuck in the slot?
So here’s where the original and this follow-up really diverge. Where as the first had kids discovering the game and having it affect their world (e.g., wild animals rampaging through their house), now the kids are pulled into the game and are in its world. What’s more, and something I think was really clever, they have been transformed into playable ‘characters’ within the story. This means that whomever they chose at the select menu when they began the game are now who they are when they get sucked in. Smart. So … that means timid, gangly Spencer transforms into Dr. Smolder Bravestone, played by Dwayne Johnson, a muscle-bound adventurer with literally no weakness, even if it’s really Spencer’s personality stuck inside him. Bam. Comedy.
For the others, that leaves big burly football jock Anthony stuffed into the body of little Franklin “Mouse” Finbar, played by Kevin Hart; frumpy wallflower Martha now inside leggy Lara Croft-esque Ruby Roundhouse, played by Karen Gillan, and Bethany, the gorgeous socialite trapped within the portly innards of Professor Sheldon “Shelly” Oberon, played by Jack Black. Yup. She becomes a man. This is kinda clever and loads the film with all kinds of possibilities.
Now, yes, some of those possibilities run a foul (there are penis jokes that never really work), but surprisingly, many others land right on their feet and in the very capable hands of the ‘adult’ actors, make for many satisfying moments. Tell me anyone who can scream like a maniac better than Kevin Hart? No one. And Black is very good as a man possessed by a teen girl. Worse, a teen girl without her smartphone. Gillan plays well into the ‘sexy girl’ game character so overdone in gaming and Johnson is, well, you know … he’s Dwayne Johnson. There’s probably never been a more meta action star in the history of cinema. You can’t help but feel good watching him.
What works very well are bits that combine video gaming tropes and live action, making them rules within the Jumanji landscape. As per many early games of the 80s and 90s, each person has only three lives and when they ‘die’ drop right back into the action, minus a health bar (tattooed on their forearms). The ‘map’ is leveled so each area they enter becomes increasingly harder. People they meet along the way are NPCs (Non-playable characters) who repeat helpful lines of dialogue and nothing more. They all have strengths and weakness and can do thing in the game that would be impossible elsewhere. This is fun stuff.
The best part, and what becomes the central message of the film, is that each recognize how their abilities are only useful when in concert with the others, meaning that navigating their way through this dangerous place requires they work together, slowly realizing that here or anywhere, they are not so much different and have much in common. Conflicts arise, especially between the boys where trust and friendship issues come to the forefront, leading to some funny bits, but more so, enlightening ones, where genuine growth begins to shape them. It was right about here where I suddenly realized … hey, I’m kinda getting into this.
Yes, there are some tired tropes to deal with. Worn out feet dragging tired. The four teens are aggressively stuffed into archetypes at the start, though I guess icons like John Hughes made his career with these same models making his movies so perhaps one really can’t fault screenwriters for constantly going there, it’s just for an old movie fan like myself, how many nerds and jocks and wallflowers and princesses can I sit though and not help but feel soul-crushingly numb by it? It makes the first fifteen minutes of the movie a bit of a bore, especially since you know what is coming. After all, it ain’t them on the poster.
Now let me flip that and counter my own argument. These kids are naturally important as is their setup and it’s probably best to keep them in very wide, easily identifiable lanes so audiences aren’t having to spend too much time trying juggle who is whom and which personality is more layered than the other, especially since for most of the movie they are in somebody else’s bodies. Let’s not forget, this is actually a kid’s movie, even if us adults want to join in the fun.
So I posed a loaded question with the title of this post and don’t worry, I intend to get to an answer. The original Robin Williams Jumanji is, for obvious reasons, beloved by a generation, and certainly his passing and general nostalgia have made it even fonder for fans who already hold it dear. I’m not here to take that away. However, I was never a fan of it, even on release, and while I appreciate the story and the effort, it never held any kind of ‘magic’ for me, even as good as Williams and most of the rest of the cast are.
What I like about Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle is how creative it really is, mostly because the studio didn’t do the obvious and simply retread the experience, using zoo animals to run more rampant damage on an unsuspecting pastoral town. Instead, they went the other way and dropped us in a new world with far less chaos and much more character development. I also really like the addition of Alex (Nick Jonas), whom I won’t spoil if you haven’t seen this movie. He’s just what the film needs and Jonas is very good in the part.
Yes, much of this movie, like the first, is a series of contrived moments and obvious plotting, but, and this is a pretty series but, it has great heart and works hard to deliver what it intends. It’s also good fun, with the reteaming of Hart and Johnson (after their dreadful Central Intelligence), doing some very good physical comedy together. Is it destined to be classic, no. It has flaws, but it’s better than the first. There. I said it.