I’m not a fan of the original Jumanji, nor was I expecting anything great from its stand-alone sequel. yet I eagerly looked forward to seeing Welcome to the Jungle. It was the film’s trailer that sold me on its promising concept. Four high school teenagers are sent to detention ala The Breakfast Club-style where they discover an old video game called Jumanji. Turns out it’s the same Jumanji from the original film, having magically transformed itself to better entice the current generation. The four teens try to play and are sucked into Jumanji as a result—becoming their chosen characters in a game they must complete to escape, unless they run out of lives first, in which case it’s game over…permanently.
Welcome to the Jungle’s concept of character avatars is what caught my interest—or more specifically, four high school students transforming into character avatars that are portrayed by well-known actors. Nerdy gamer Spencer (Alex Wolff) becomes the incredibly buff archaeologist Dr. Smolder Bravestone (Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson). Football jock Fridge (Ser’Darius Blain) becomes the feeble zoologist lackey Franklin Finbar (Kevin Hart). Judgmental intellectual Martha (Morgan Turner) becomes the martial artist commando Ruby Roundhouse (Karen Gillan), and popular plastic Bethany (Madison Iseman) becomes the portly professor Sheldon Oberon (Jack Black).
Watching these grownup actors try imitating their teenage counterparts is very entertaining. It’s the latter transformation that I most anticipated after viewing the trailer. Jack Black acting as a plastic teenage girl trapped in a middle-aged man’s body sounded ripe for comedy, and sure enough, he is one of the film’s best aspects. Some of the funniest scenes involve “Bethany” getting used to having a johnson and ogling over the attractive male characters. One scene involves both aspects as Bethany gets a little too excited during an intimate moment and then further excited over the crazy things her…thing can do. There’s a classic comedy scene where Bethany tries teaching Martha to be more seductive, which involves Jack Black doing a lot of strutting and hair flipping. A lot of what makes Central Intelligence work applies here with Johnson and Hart: effective comedic chemistry between the two actors and The Rock playing a badass nerd. At times Spencer is kicking ass as Dr. Bravestone while other times he’s panicking about not having his inhaler, high-pitched screaming or awkwardly kissing his love interest.
Welcome to the Jungle’s other noteworthy plus—an aspect I was pleasantly surprised to see—is its witty love letter to 90s-2000s video games. While the film’s graphics are not as polygonal, there’s still plenty of nods and lampshading to my era of gaming such as a cheesy in-game storyline, hammerspace inventory, NPCs with very limited dialogue, and the only female character being scantily dressed despite it being impractical for the situation. Each of the avatars possesses their own unique skills, strengths, and weaknesses used for either plot progression or satirical jokes—a latter example being Finbar’s inexplicably fatal weakness to cake. There’s a beautifully-timed scene where an in-game cutscene reveals how treacherous Jumanji’s world is, ending with the game’s antagonist (Bobby Cannavale) telling his men to “slaughter anyone” who prevents him from obtaining the game’s MacGuffin. Without missing a beat, the film cuts back to an NPC handing the teens the MacGuffin; “Right, here you go!”
Welcome to the Jungle’s focus on character interactions and development is both a strength and a weakness. On one hand, it allows the group to form genuine bonds with one another, making them feel more fleshed out and dynamic—yet these bonding sessions can drag at times, making for an uneven pacing alongside the action scenes. The film also lacks in creativity with its jungle obstacles (the one area its predecessor beats it). The antagonist’s main gimmick is that he can control all animals in Jumanji, and while we do get brief confrontations between the group and hippos, rhinos, and jaguars, I wish the film would have gotten even more imaginative with its jungle fauna (as Kong: Skull Island does). Faults aside, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle ultimately succeeds thanks to its witty actor avatars and video game homage—making it an entertainingly light-hearted popcorn flick during the primarily dramatic Oscar season.
