By Emilio Frenk.
Director: Jake Kasdan
Cast: Dwayne Johnson, Jack Black, Kevin Hart, Karen Gillan, Nick Jonas, Alex Wolff, Madison Iseman, Ser´Darius Blain, Morgan Turner, Mason Guccione, Rys Darby, Tim Matheson and Bobby Cannavale.
Rating: Very Good.
Jake Kasdan, director of “Bad Teacher” and “Sex Tape” brings “Jumanji: Welcome To The Jungle”, the second film of the “Jumanji” franchise and it´s a funny and entertaining film.
The movie tells the story of Spencer Gilpin (Alex Wolff) a nerdy gamer who goes to detention in High School with football jock Anthony “Fridge” Johnson (Ser´Darius Blain), the popular but self centered Bethany Walker (Madison Iseman) and Martha Kaply (Morgan Turner) a girl who recently complained about physical education class.
The four of them while they are stapling papers, discover an old game console with the game Jumanji. The four of them begin to play the game and get sucked in it.
Now the four of them are inside the game and be in different avatars. Specer will be the archaeologist and explorer Dr. Smolder Bravestone (Dwayne Johnson), Bethany is Professor Sheldon “Shelly” Oberon (Jack Black) a cartographer, cryptography expert, Fridge is Franklin “Mouse” Finbar (Kevin Hart) a zoologist and weapons expert and finally Martha is Ruby Roundhouse (Karen Gillan) a martial artist and dance fighter.
In order to get back to reality the four of them must finish the game and their mission will be to return the “Jaguars Eye” a jewel that controls the animals in Jumanji. The jewel happens to be in the possession of explorer Russel Van Pelt (Bobby Cannavale) who happens to be cursed and has total control of the jungle.
Now the four of them will be in the race against time to recover the jewel, break the course of Jumanji and go back to reality before the game is over.
One of the things that made “Jumanji: Welcome To The Jungle” a very entertaining film was the originality of the concept. The screenplay written by Chris McKenna, Erik Sommers, Scott Rosenberg and Jeff Pinkner was very original and just the fact that how we image ourselves being inside a video game is a very interesting idea.
As human beings we are the ones who manipulate the controllers and when things don´t go the way we expect, we want to be inside the game and this movie is how we imagine ourselves in that situation.
The screenplay is filled with fun dialogue and very good moments. At the same time I like the fact that we see characters that have a lot of internal and external conflicts.
Without a doubt this is Jake Kasdan´s most ambitious film. He directed an entertaining film and I liked how he manage the timing of the film. The use of comedy in this film was outstanding and he had the ideal cast of his disposal.
Jack Black as always was very funny in this film and he was one of my favorite characters of this film. Kevin Hart did a very good job which surprisingly enough was not that annoying as usual. Dwayne Johnson was very good, so as Karen Gillan.
Bobby Cannavale was a very good villain in this film and he is terrifying in this role as Van Pelt. He played his character in a very convincing and by moments funny way. This is the type of villains that work in a movie as well as there is a fun screenplay involved, which was the case here.
The movie does get by moments cheezy and predictable but still it does entertain and doesn´t exceed those moments.
The message on believing in yourself and accepting others is very well triggered and does work here.
To be completely honest when I heard that there was a Jumanji I always thought that it was going to be remake of the 1995 film starring the late Robin Williams but never a sequel. I also had a huge prejudice against it but I was completely wrong and I am happy about it since I really enjoyed this film.
“Jumanji: Welcome To The Jungle” is a movie that will entertain you from beginning to end and it´s the ideal film to spend a good time with the family and children.