Jumanji: The Next Level

A couple of years ago Jumanji was rebooted. The Robin Williams fantasy movie about a board game suddenly became a film starring Dwayne Johnson about a computer game and the disparate high-school kids who end up living the game. They all took on computer game characters and had to work through the game in order to be returned to their regular lives, changed.

And now there’s a sequel, still starring Dwayne Johnson! In the time since the last film, Spencer has broken up with Bethany and is reluctant to join Fridge and Ashley. Moodily he goes into the basement and triggers the Jumanji game. The elderly games console is in pieces on a bench, so it’s not working properly so when it’s triggered it also takes his grandfather Eddie (played by Danny DeVitto) and Milo (Danny Glover), ex-friends who used to run a restaurant, which happens to be where Spencer’s friends hang out.

In the game Karen Gillian, Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart and Jack Black play the protagonists avatars. The big joy is The Rock being Danny DeVitto, adding to the theory that The Rock can do anything and anything that features The Rock is automatically better.

The film has more elaborate action sequences. The action begins with a drop from an aeroplane following the intro to the premise: the same Jumanji guy with the limited script returns as the two old guys get used to the notion of a computer game, and of being inside a computer game. They are all dropped and that’s where the setup continues: you have a limited number of lives, and your remaining lives appear as a skin tattoo on your arm.

Having received their quest they start towards completing it. There’s a bridge sequence that’s a live action retelling of a classic platform game, and there’s more than just jungle this time. They land in the desert and move towards an icy, mountainous region for the end of the film. The final sequence is in a castle, and there’s hand-to-hand fighting which is fantastic for Johnson and Gillan, who the plot has conspired to sort-of put together—although a certain amount of gymnastics with the plot has to happen to achieve this.

The fun thing about these films is that there’s no stopping the plot for romance: it’s more about established characters from the “real” world who are working together as if they’re really playing a multi-player game. They’re also not going for those fans of a certain age who remember when computer games were ugly plastic and dodgy graphics and sound. This film particularly has a subplot about how friendships endure over an extended period of time, and the inclusion of college age friends and those of elderly men makes it a bit more rich as a story as well as bringing Danny Glover back to our screens. Jack Black and Kevin Hart are exceptionally funny and able to do great comic work with their assumed characters. 

The sequel is a lot of fun but for all its effects and wizardry the art direction in the restaurant at the close of the film is the most joyful because it’s a wonderful diner/restaurant. The post-credit sting is very quickly presented, and suggests that there might be more films in the saga… and it’s not certain that this is a good idea.