Reviewing - The Jumanji Trilogy
It's not quite clear if this is in fact a trilogy, or if it's a film followed by a reboot and the reboot's sequel - or if Zathura is also a part of this in some weird way. What IS clear is that Jumanji really likes messing up kid's lives by throwing them into the heart of weird jungles and leaving them to fend for themselves.
Jumanji (**1/2)
In which Robin Williams erases the memories of two kids in order to get his life back
This was weird far more than wonderful.
It seemed to me like this should be a film that I’d instantly enjoy - it’s got Robin Williams, magic, and a jungle/adventure vibe to it. Mix those all together and you should have a classic on your hands - and I’ve always thought this film had that kind of reputation. When watching it, though, I didn’t really find that to be the case.
First of all, you don’t really find out who the main characters are until the end of the movie. This film has basically THREE opening scenes - the burial of Jumanji way-back-when, Robin Williams playing the game as a kid, and then Kirsten Dunst and her brother finding it. Each time, you wonder how important these characters are going to be - and by the time we get to Kirsten Dunst, I thought “okay, these two are our main characters. This movie is about them.” Except this movie isn’t about them. It’s about Robin Williams. We know this because at the end of the movie when everything’s fixed, Kirsten and her brother have no memory of everything that’s happened. The only characters who experienced growth were Williams and his girlfriend - and since they’re the ones who develop, they’re the ones who this story is about. But if it’s about them, why spend so much time with the newer kids? I think Kirsten and her brother should’ve had some sort of meaningful resolution to their character arcs. Sure, they end up in a world where their parents didn’t die, but that also means that the characters we knew and loved essentially ceased to exist the moment the game ended. Those kids basically died.
The CGI was fine for the time, but I actually expected more from the puppetry and animatronics. The lion was disappointing, and the alligator really didn’t cut it either. The kid who turned into a monkey ended up looking more like the Grinch than a chimp. And what’s up with the relaxed gun control laws in this town? That “Van Pelt” guy bought a terrifying weapon from a gun store and proceeded to shoot up a grocery store. In today’s American climate, this is far more unsettling than it might have been back in the day. Hearing stories about people who brought guns into public places and started shooting is honestly far too common these days. That part was a little too real.
Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (***)
In which Jack Black competes with Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson for hottest character
This was the sequel that nobody asked for, but it was simple enough and fun enough to make it worth the price of a ticket.
First of all, you cannot deny the dynamic duo that is Dwayne Johnson and Kevin Hart. Their energy together is vibrant and fun, and Kevin Hart alone has enough charisma to carry most scenes. I’m not usually a fan of Jack Black, but I have to admit that he made me laugh multiple times through this film. The woman-trapped-in-a-man’s-body (and vice versa) is a joke as old as the theatre itself, but Black proves that it’s not yet an obsolete gimmick. Watching him try to teach Ruby Roundhouse how to flirt was a great bit. Karen Gillan held her own as the ‘other’ female lead. I noticed a bit where she put on a half-whispery voice in an attempt to seduce some guards, and immediately I heard Nebula from Guardians of the Galaxy. Nick Jonas wasn’t a face I expected to see in a movie like this, but he actually did fine as a competent actor – he wasn’t just playing himself, as many celebrities do when they do movie cameos.
I’m a sucker for jungle adventures, so I loved the aesthetic and costume design for each of the characters. It was interesting how the film acknowledged the ridiculousness of Ruby’s outfit, but then doubled back by willingly reducing her to a sex symbol (albeit in the form of a joke) later on as a plot device. I’m not sure why her skill had to be ‘dance fighting’ – just because music is playing while she fights doesn’t mean she is ‘dance fighting’. When I think of dance fighting, I think of River from Joss Whedon’s Serenity, or of the characters in “Shaun of the Dead” who killed zombies to Queen’s “Don’t Stop Me Now”. Or I guess West Side Story. Anyway, my point is that I think they could have done a better job with her.
One other thing – I really thought they were planning on having a double meaning for “Save Jumanji”. At the beginning, they were told that if they wished to leave the game, all they needed to was “Save Jumanji and call out its name”. Seeing as this whole thing is a video game, I figured the idea would be that somewhere in the final act, the characters would figure out a way to access the game’s main menu to ‘save’ their progress. I think this was a bit of a wasted opportunity, especially since hearing the characters just yelling ‘Jumanji’ after having defeated the bad guy was a bit anti-climactic.
But on the whole, I had a good time while watching this movie. Here’s hoping the next one is even better.
Jumanji: The Next Level (***)
In which an elderly man decides to permanently turn himself into a horse to escape the clutches of death
This was very funny, but not much more than that.
Before we get into this – is this a sequel, a threequel, or what? It’s the second Jumanji film in the past few years, and the last one kind of served as a soft reboot. However, all three films officially take place within the same universe, so this is technically the third film in a trilogy. Unless you count Zathura, the 2005 Jon Favreau flick that (at the time) was also supposed to occur within the same world. So this film could really be classified as the second, third, OR fourth in the franchise. That doesn’t happen too often.
Okay, so Dwayne Johnson and Kevin Hart are STILL very funny. Hart is out of his fast-talking element, but his comedic timing is still as sharp as ever. Johnson does as good of a Danny Devito impression as anyone could have expected Dwayne Johnson to pull off, and all in all the laughs are just as plentiful as they were the first time around. Jack Black and Karen Gillan hold their own as well. Nick Jonas is the one who gets the short end of the stick this time around. Whereas in the previous film he played an important role and had a complete story arc for us to follow, it really seems like he didn't NEED to be in this movie. I get that Bethany (Karen Gillan's high school counterpart) needed to get back into the game and wanted some help, but it's never really explained how the Jonas Brother got them back. Did he know how to tinker with the Jumanji box? That seems unlikely to me.
The action pieces are fun even if you know that the characters are never in any real danger. This whole movie is really more about joke delivery than it is about making you feel worried for the safety of the characters - to that end, every action scene is more about generating physical comedy and funny one-liners screamed loudly than they are about compelling stunts.
Where this movie falls short for me is in the wasted plot thread about the game being "broken". The game box is supposed to be half-busted, which is presumably why players got sucked in without choosing their characters (or even agreeing to play the game). I was anticipating a movie where our characters found levels of the game that were incomplete or missing important fragments. I thought that NPC characters would act even more out-of-sorts than usual, or that other key aspects of the game would be finicky. We DID get the character-swapping gimmick, and that was fun, but considering that the game box had been totally destroyed at the end of the last movie, I was hoping for more significant ramifications than a glitch that was actually more of a help than a hindrance.
Oh, and let's talk about the Pegasus. That was really stupid. If you were dying, would you really want to avoid death by turning into a horse and living in the jungle for eternity? Danny Glover's character didn't have long to live. I get that. But he and Danny Devito had just become friends again, and I'm sure he had some kind of family back in the real world. Deciding to leave all that behind so that he could be a horse seemed like a bit of a stretch...ESPECIALLY considering that he could have just character-swapped to become Dwayne Johnson's character. If I was dying and had the option to become The Rock, that's a much more attractive alternative to being a HORSE.
All in all, I had a good time and laughed a lot. But that's it.
This post was originally published on March 30, 2020.
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