Jumanji: Welcome To The Jungle - Johnson & Co Bring The Humour And Heart Of The Original

Certificate – 12A
Directed by – Jake Kasdan
Starring – Dwayne Johnson; Kevin Hart; Karen Gillian; Jack Black; Nick Jonas.
Running Time – 119 Minutes (1 hour 59 minutes)

 ★★★★✩

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I wasn't too sure what to expect from the sequel to the 22-year-old Jumanji, but I was pleasantly surprised by how entertained the film was with decent performances from the core cast and funny moments.

When four teenagers get sucked into the world of Jumanji they turn into the video game avatars of Johnson, Hart, Gillian and Black. They immediately discover is that you don’t just play Jumanji – Jumanji plays you. They’ll have to go on the most dangerous adventure of their lives, or they’ll be stuck in the game forever.

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The brilliance of this film comes from the joy and fun of Johnson, Hart, Gillian and especially Black. Following their pairing in last year's buddy-cop Comedy Central Intelligence, Johnson and Hart continue their superb chemistry which both having a good balance between being the straight guy and comic relief.

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Johnson plays a nerdy, teen boy really well and when he’s in awe of his muscles and strength, it had an element of Big and as for Hart, he basically just plays himself (which is not an issue).

Meanwhile, Gillian looked amazing and had a great job firstly pointing out the stupidity of her outfit and then being the kickass woman which girls could look up to. The MVP of the whole film is Black, who steals the film has a teenager girl and he does it brilliant to the point I want to see the 48-year-old do more.

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Give Black’s teenager girl character is short spin-off sequel, make it a Blu-ray extra! Elsewhere, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle is a reminder that family-friendly films seem to get the best from Black as his best-known role for plenty is still School of Rock and thought he did a decent job last year's Goosebumps.

The music also stood out, it might need another listen to see if it was just generic.

You can tell everyone from the cast and director Kasdan wanted to bring the heart of Robin Williams and the original film and it hits most of the time because it gets emotional near the end of the film, but it also misses because you could never recreate what Williams did. Additionally, I did have an issue with how the Jumanji becomes a video game.

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To quickly stay with the negative, the villain was completely forgettable I even forgot his name the minute it was mentioned.

However, going back to the video game side of the film (like Wreck-It Ralph and Scott Pilgrim vs The World) this is one of the better video game movies compared to actual video game adaptations.

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Verdict

While it could never be like the original film, the core cast bring a hella lot of fun and heart with a brilliant MVP performance by Black and be perfect counter-programming against The Last Jedi.