Directed by: Jake Kasdan
Written by: Chris McKenna, Erik Sommers, Scott Rosenberg, Jeff Pinkner
Starring: Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart, Karen Gillan, Jack Black
IMDb Link
Four kids get stuck in a video game version of Jumanji, where they're subjected to avatars that are extremely unlike them for comedic effect. It's simple irony and an easy way to have light-stakes action with a catch-all excuse for anything that doesn't make sense in the movie, both facts that the film makes plenty use of.
Their actual goal is to get a jewel to the top of a giant jaguar statue so that they can get out of the game, a basic excuse to have a bunch of action scenes. These are overall decent as well, the most engaging of which involves the characters stuck in a damaged helicopter incapable of changing its pitch and in the process getting chased by a stampede of rhinos, which manages to be surprisingly more exhilarating than anything else in the rest of the movie.
Beyond the paper-thin plot, the film focuses on its characters and does some paint-by-numbers work to give each of them arcs and comedy based on their character and situation. Nerdy kid Spencer lands in the body of The Rock and jock kid Fridge gets stuck in the body of Kevin Hart, nerdy girl Martha is put in to Karen Gillan's bod and self-obsessed popular girl Bethany gets thrown in to Jack Black's; hilarity over this dysmorphia ensues with varying results. The moments the film reminds you that Jack Black is playing a teenage girl are the funniest, and while the rest aren't as consistently laugh-out-loud it's still more bad than good, in a relatively comfortable way. The characters also all learn a little something about themselves and become more comfortable with who they are as people and like each other more, re-forging old friendships and making new ones. It's the sort of easy character development that works for the film's target audience.
As worthwhile as the film's strengths are, it manages to overload itself with exposition and subplots. The mechanics of the video game are explained to death, and the film throws some basic and slightly patronising jargon to make it look like at least one of the characters actually plays video games, which becomes a little obvious when newer and older terms gets mixed together. The video game frame works as it is, the stuff doesn't need to be explained at great length, in pieces and over the course of the movie for the audience to get the plot that's taking place within it. As for subplots, the standard romance works for the sake of comedy, with nerdy people inside of charismatic people having the most awkward kiss you've ever seen, but is otherwise underdeveloped beyond "I talked to a girl/boy about my feelings and we kissed so we'll be together forever now". Likewise, extra characters only add to the running time and create too much nonsense that puts a confusing dampener on the movie's coda.
The Short Version: Jumanji is pretty funny, pretty exciting, and pretty good. While the film is somewhat weighed down by occasional nonsense jargon and subplots that don't add much and ultimately leave too many questions, the decently-made action and character-oriented comedy is more than enough to keep it together.
Rating: 6.5/10
Published December 26th, 2017
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