Monday, December 16, 2019

Jumanji the Next Level - Doubling Up on Everything Jumanji

Jumanji: The Next Level is a 2019 American fantasy adventure comedy film directed by Jake Kasdan and written by Kasdan, Jeff Pinkner and Scott Rosenberg. The film is the sequel to 1995's Jumanji that starred Robin Williams, following 2017's Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle. It is fourth installment, overall, in the Jumanji franchise


I only watched the film yesterday as the writing of this review so I'm really late in this one. I've watched Jumanji Welcome to the Jungle so I've decided to do a review on this one as well. Minor spoilers are in effect just to be sure.



Three years after the event of Welcome to the Jungle each of the four characters had gone their separate ways living except for Spence who found his time spent in the game more meaningful than his real life one. The four decided to meet up again but when Spence didn't show up the others decided to find him even if it was getting back into the game Jumanji.


As an overall story point of view Jumanji the Next level expands on the lore of the first game by making it more fleshed out than what they did on Welcome to the Jungle. New skills, new character avatar, new expanded areas to explore from a desert to the ice covered mountain. The movie has some interesting plot twist specially during the third act. Something about a certain avatar character stat that isn't supposed to be there. I won't go into detail but you will notice it when you see the film.


There are also some very subtle subplots that weren't really explored about certain villain that they showed during the third act that wasn't fully explained that I hope will be explored in detail in the third film should they make a third one. Jumanji the Next Level does hint of a third film in the works since the ending was sort of a cliffhanger that is part easter egg for those familiar with the Jumanji film by Robin Williams.


Character wise this is pretty much what the first film was but with new characters into play. And its nice to see the Dwayne imitate an old man for a change. His portrayal isn't perfect but I'd admit there are some rather funny moments in there. Jack Black is still Jack Black and his level of comedy is always fun to see. It has double the crazy antics characters go through. It also explores on the characters individual skills that the first film barely touched upon like certain characters ability to solve puzzles ala Tomb Raider.


The rest of the cast are rather good as well although some scenes and line could probably been delivered better a little bit. Also some of the jokes didn't land for me. Certain characters wasn't given enough time to shine for me. I didn't get that enough of the connection to them so when it comes to the big twist it didn't hit emotionally as hard as I wanted it to be. Also even though the music for Jumanji the Next Level was pretty decent the music score for Welcome to the Jungle is still on a league of its own.


If you have watched the first film then you will enjoy the movie more as there are jokes and scenes here that connects to the first film. You don't have to watch the previous film to enjoy this one but it does add in the entertainment and fun factor. The movie isn't perfect as there's some over use of cgi here and there. This film won't win any awards but the entertainment factor is there. If you enjoyed the sort of entertainment and fun that Jumanji Welcome the Jungle delivered then you will find plenty of that here.


Overall Jumanji the Next Level is a surprisingly decent follow up to Jumanji Welcome to the Jungle expanding on the world of Jumanji, the different areas and the over the top avatar characters. If you like the first film then you will definitely enjoy this one to some extent. If you're not a fan of Jumanji or the previous film than this film is definitely isn't for you.






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