I was quite fond of the original Jumanji film in the 1990s. So, I thought I would also give the latest installment a try. It turned out to be quite an entertaining film, albeit devoid of any greatness.
THE MAIN CAST:
Dwayne Johnson… Spencer
Kevin Hart… Fridge
Jack Black… Bethany
Karen Gillian… Martha
THE BASIC STORYLINE:
The story centers around 4 students at school who get into detention in different ways. While they are assigned a cleanup job in a room as part of it, they get bored and indulge in playing a video game. The objective of the strategy game is to restore a green emerald to the peak of a “jaguar” shaped mountain peak, away from the clutches of a very evil fellow who wants to misuse it. But they all miraculously end up inside the video game as their game avatars, with black bars embedded in their arms indicating the number of lives they have left in that world. Every time one of them dies owing to a mishap, one would fall from the sky as the next available “life” version. One of the embedded bars on their respective arm also simultaneously reduces to indicated the reduced number of lives. The entire film centers around this premise with a live action adventure in a jungle like setting inside the video game.
NOTABLE THINGS ABOUT THE FILM:
1) Although the film was quite entertaining to watch and the artists performed their parts adequately, I can’t really single out any performance to be too great.
2) The part where the foursome realise they are now their game avatars is quite funny. Their game personas are significantly different.
In fact, the hottest woman amongst them ends up being a chubby male professor in the game.
The aloof and quiet Martha is transformed into the most attractive game character, her weakness being “venom” and her strength “dance fighting”, as we eventually find out. This is recipe for a pretty funny sequence in the latter stages.
3) I think the screenplay and story are as good as it can be, with the actors and the premise. Perhaps, some questions can be raised about Alex’s return towards the end – If the circumstances were rightly depicted or should it have been a bit different? I think it is acceptable since the filmmakers themselves didn’t delve too much into the details there.
4) The pace of the film was balanced. The director probably got the best he could, out of his performers.
5) This was a movie with special effects galore and it doesn’t disappoint in that regard. I was satisfied on most occasions, whenever they were bringing the the parts intrinsic to a video game to life.
6) I think it works mostly as a "reasonably predictable action adventure comedy", drawing from many sources.
7) Despite getting a green signal on most counts, the “special effects” filled film doesn’t feel special enough.
a) I think perhaps better actors would’ve made the drama that unfolded more palpable.
b) Owing to the story and the scenes, it never really feels like a thriller, although this was probably one of the objectives of the film. It doesn’t quite measure up to the thrills and spills of the original film.
c) The villain never really feels "imposing" during the film. He is just sort of going through the motions.
8) The scoring was probably adequate for the film. I wasn’t discontent in that regard.
All in all, good entertainment and a one time watch. It’s probably doing better than the film actually is, as it gets a lot of basics right. Many films of this genre typically even lack that. I would rate it a 6.5-7 / 10.