Year: 2017
Director: Jack Kasdan
Country: US
Language: English
Directed by Joe Johnston, 1995's fantasy adventure film Jumanji was, surprisingly, an adaptation of Chris Van Allsburg's 1981 children's book. It starred Robin Williams and, despite its poor critical reception, would go on to be one of the highest grossing films of that year. Part of the Jumanji Franchise, the film spawned a sequel and an animated television series from 1996-1999.
Four teenagers are sucked into a magical video game, and the only way they can escape is to work together to finish the game.
Cinephiles often complain that action movies resemble the structure of a videogame. Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle takes pride in using videogame logic (each character has three lives, has statistics assigned to them) and does so in a more engaging way than most that try to follow the same formula. Add in the varied comic stylings of Kevin Hart, The Rock and Jack Black and you've got a decent flick on your hands.
Unfortunately it does suffer from poor use of CGI; the digital animals and "special effects" look like they came straight from the original. ignoring 20+ years of computer progress. In addition, some of the humor, like Karen Gilan karate fighting to "Baby I Love Your Way" just falls flat. While I do love the main villain, a character who can control animals, I don't like that most of the baddies are just generic goons on motorcycles.
Jumanji is a mixed bag that will please and bore, often multiple times throughout one viewing. Perhaps it could have been trimmed a half hour, as the 2hr run-time is a lot to sit through. Despite the public's nostalgia for the Robin Williams version, I must admit that I liked this better.
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