Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle is a 2017 comedy/adventure film directed by Jake Kasdan. The film stars Dwayne Johnson, Jack Black, Kevin Hart, Karen Gillan, Nick Jonas, and Bobby Cannavale. Set twenty-one years after the first film, the plot follows four teenagers who are transported into the video game world of Jumanji, playing as the characters they chose, and uniting with another player, must overcome the game’s magical power in order to win and return home.
Well, this sucks. As much as I wanted to hate this film, I really did go into it with an open mind. With expectations extremely low, I came out.. fairly surprised. Although Jumanji fails to wow us with originality, it does try to separate itself from the original gem of a film we had back in the mid 90’s. With that being said, this film was by no means perfect and by no means horrible. It’s just another Baywatch.. A sequel to a film that didn’t need a sequel.
So then what makes Jumanji so enjoyable that people keep running off to see it? Well, to be honest I think it is the market since it’s the only comedy film that’s out right now that isn’t rated R, and also the fact that it caters to families rather than just adults. This film does have some pretty good comedic elements to it, but those moments mean nothing when the entire film feels like a game (even though it is). I mean that there are plenty of moments where characters never feel like they’re taking their situation too seriously, and because of that the comedy sometimes feels like an afterthought.
But what did do very well was this film’s acting. I never thought I’d say this but Jack Black.. was really good. All of the actors did a fairly good job at convincing the audience that their avatars aren’t their real bodies, but Jack Black definitely outshines the rest of the cast. Kevin Hart is.. well, Kevin Hart. And Dwayne Johnson was also decently good. I really have high hopes for his acting career since he’s actually a pretty good actor, but I just hope that he personally starts taking more serious roles in the future. He’s got talent, but seems to hold back a lot of his potential with these types of films. Against popular opinion here, I didn’t really enjoy Karen Gillan’s character or performance at all. I love her as an actress, but she just didn’t immerse me like the other actors in this film did. Probably one of the lesser performances from this film.
Continuing on, this film does a fairly good job with its setup. A lot of the exposition in this film is explained with common video game logic, so it never feels too difficult to understand or imagine. Sometimes things seem a little too out there even in game logic, but again this is not meant to be a stellar film, it’s basically just here to make money. As for other aspects like the villain? Eh. The film fails to provide a decent antagonist, and I can’t even remember what his goal was, showing you just how memorable his character was. The film fails to explain any information regarding the gem that they have to take from point A to point B, and left a lot people (myself included) questioning the powers that it posses and why our main character can’t use it themselves.
Jumanji surprised me with a lot of practical sets and effects, but then upset me with the repetition of those set pieces. The visual effects in this film were sometimes pretty good, and other times not so good. See what I’m getting at here? There’s nothing horrible or great about this film when you look at every aspect of it. The soundtrack was decent, but the score was forgettable, and the sound design to this film was I guess just sub par. Jumanji never really wowed me on any aspect of its technical pieces, and although I’m not surprised, I’m also not impressed.
Wrapping things up, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle wasn’t as bad as I initially thought it would be when we first heard about its announcement. Thankfully it wasn’t a disrespectful remake of the classic 90’s film, and it also wasn’t trash, yet unsurprisingly Jumanji really never stood out as anything exceptional either. It’s acting was pretty good, story was not too bad, exposition was decent, and its technical aspects were sub par. It’s one of those films that will give you some entertainment value the first time you watch it, but a second screening will really do nothing but tarnish what little it has going for it. In the end I decided to give Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle an “Alright” on theVade Review Bar. With that being said this film gives me hope for the future of Hollywood. Not the fact that they should continue remaking good films, but that these remakes they are making aren’t as bad as what we were expecting.
