Jumanji: The Next Level (3/5 Stars)

I had written in my review of Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle that it was the type of movie that you had to take a step back and shake yourself into realizing it was a great film. Jumanji: The Next Movie is the same concept, with the same actors, and the same director, but it is not a great film. Again, one has to take a step back and contemplate what exactly is the different since there is so much in common.

The most obvious difference is the disappearance of the original writers: Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers. I sung their praises before so I will not dwell on their greatness here. Notice instead how this movie lacks the sheer efficiency and ingenious character development of the first movie. In particular, the game itself was more fully realized (and more obviously a video game) in the first movie. Here, the video game’s plot is not so clearly constructed. It is hardly to imagine the various scenes as video game levels. Still, this movie has a few good ideas and does its best to exploit them to their most enjoyable.

The best idea of this sequel, and a further confirmation into what made the first movie work so well, is to fully lean in on the actors doing impressions of other actors. Regardless of what the plot is doing, I always find this interesting. This sequel introduces two more real-life characters: Uncle Eddie played by Danny Devito and his ex-business partner Milo Walker played by Danny Glover. When the real people are sucked into the game this time, Danny Devito inhabits of Dr. Smolder Bravestone, played by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. Likewise Danny Glover inhabits Moose Finbar, played by Kevin Hart. Both are fun impressions. I would give Kevin Hart the upper hand on his though. (Favorite line: “Did…I just kill Eddie…by talking…too slow…just like…he always said I would).

Dr. Shelly Oberon, played by Jack Black, who was the avatar of the mean girl in the first film, is now the avatar of Fridge, the black football player. So Jack Black's impression this time around is a complete 180. This is one of those things that might seem controversial but much like Robert Downey Jr.’s performance in Tropic Thunder has inexplicably not raised eyebrows. Also joining the cast is Awkwafina as another avatar player character in the video game. Near the end she  switches places and becomes the avatar of Danny Devito. She does a great job (dare I say better job than The Rock) in acting like an old short fat outspoken Italian man.

The acting shenanigans are the most interesting part of this movie. So much so, that the action sequences, though packed with special effects, feel like they are get in the way of the performances. In the original movie there was more of a balance (or at least the action sequences seemed to be more intertwined with the character development). What is also lacking from the original movie is any particularly interesting development in the original four teenage characters. The pathos of this movie belongs entirely to the characters of Danny Devito and Danny Glover who have had some bad blood in their previous business break-up and are seeking away to heal old bonds. In effect, this makes them the main characters as they have the more emotional territory to cover. Unlike the first movie, there is not enough for all the characters to do, less balance between the character plots and the character's skills/weaknesses do not pay off as well.

Overall, Jumanji: The Next Level is a decently good movie. It is what a sequel should be in a way: the same, but more of it. I got enough of exactly what I was looking for.

Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (5/5 Stars)

One has to step back and shake oneself into believing that “Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle” is one of the year’s best films. After all, the movie itself does not make this kind of demand on its audience. It is marketed and feels like a good time family comedy that aims only to please, not enlighten. But when a movie accomplishes what it sets out to do so well, it is important sometimes to try to deconstruct how it does what it does. There are many levels to “Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle” and they interact with each other seamlessly to an extent that puts this movie on par with such other great comedies like “Hott Fuzz” and “Tropic Thunder”.

“Jumanji” was written by Erik Sommers and Chris McKenna, both alumni of the TV show “Community”. In particular, it was Chris McKenna who was credited for writing the Emmy nominated episode “Remedial Chaos Theory”. That brilliant episode, and “Community” in general, works in much the same way as “Jumanji”. Here, like in “Community”, the characters are deliberately stock characters. We have four high-schoolers, a nerd named Spencer, a jock known as Fridge, a mean girl named Bethany, and a sarcastic girl named Martha. They find themselves for various reasons in detention, a plot set-up that seems to deliberately recall “The Breakfast Club”. Detention involves cleaning out the school’s basement, wherein the four find a video game named “Jumanji”. Using the plot conceit of a previous “Jumanji” movie from 1995, itself based on an early 1980s board game, the game comes to life as the kids are playing it. In the 1995 version, the game came into the real world. In the 2017 version, the four are sucked into the game.

While in the game the four stock high-schoolers are transformed into archetypical video game avatars that they unwittingly chose before playing the game. The nerd is transformed into Dr. Smolder Bravestone, played by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, and strong, courageous, and intelligent archeaologist (think “Indiana Jones” type). The jock is transformed into Franklin “Mouse” Finbar, played by Kevin Hart, a side-kick and zoologist. The mean girl accidentally chooses the Avatar “Shelly” Oberon, curvy genius, thinking it to be beautiful woman and not a fat middle-aged man, played by Jack Black, who excels in cartography and other sciences. And finally the sarcastic girl is transformed into Ruby Roundhouse, played by Karen Gillan (the blue robot in “Guardians of the Galaxy”), a scantily-clad femme fatale (think “Lara Croft”) who excels at Karate, Tai Chi, and Dance Fighting.

The video game they inhabit also has its rules. They have to work together with their character’s strengths and weaknesses to find their way through various levels, solve mysteries, and beat bosses in order to win the game and leave. Anyone who has ever played an old Nintendo game will immediately recognize the set-up. One of the cleverer ways this is played out is through a character named Nigel Billingsley, played by Rhys Darby, who serves as an explanatory character that, because of his programming, can only say certain things in response to certain things. This is annoying to the characters and funny to us.

Like “Community”, “Jumanji” uses cliches as a launchpad, not a crutch. By using tropes, it constructs a base of familiarity which it then exploits by developing the story through realistic character choices. We can predict how a stereotypical jock will react in a situation and we can predict how a stereotypical sidekick will react in a situation, but we are less familiar with how a stereotypical jock trapped in the body of a stereotypical sidekick will react. “Jumanji” presents eight familiar characters within four characters and stays true to all of them. Brevity is the soul of wit, and the rate of information thrown at the audience is amusingly efficient.

And how it does this is not just an achievement in writing, but in casting and acting. Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson is so good at playing a sensitive teenager that the shear believably of it is in and of itself amusing. Kevin Hart, a diminutive comedian who excels at large in-your-face comedy, seemingly didn’t have to change his personality at all in order to believably play the jock in the side-kick role, which in turn itself is a humorous take on his style of comedy comedy. But the best example of the possibilities of combining teenagers with video game avatar is Jack Black’s impersonation of a self-absorbed teenage girl. Not only is it pitch-perfect going one way, Jack Black sounding exactly like a teenage girl, it is pitch-perfect going the other way, a self-absorbed teenage girl inexplicably possessing larger-than-life intelligence. Remember that the teenagers now inhabit the special powers of their avatars. The Jack Black avatar Sheldon "Shelly" Oberon is a curvy genius. This does not make Bethany less self-absorbed, but it does make her especially articulate about her behavior in a way that is almost never seen with this particular stock character trope. This is a great example of how using otherworldly premises with their own special rules of reality can help develop the character of a real person in a way that regular drama cannot. Upon finding herself sucked inside a video game, Bethany complains about not having her phone anymore. The sarcastic girl chides her for being so self-absorbed. Jack Black’s response is so exceedingly reasonable and well thought out you wonder why nobody else is complaining about their phones being missing. Jack Black’s acting in this movie is worthy of an Oscar nomination. There is absolutely no chance of that happening because it is unthinkable that this type of role would result in such a thing. However, I would put this performance alongside Steve Martin’s in “All of Me” as a performance so unexpectedly good, one has to take a moment to realize just how underrated it is.

Finally the movie has great teamwork. There is not a character here that does not have a good role and the movie, directed by Jake Kasdan, seamlessly gives everyone something to do. Even the sarcastic girl who was transformed into the usually thankless role of the femme fatale, has her own touching developments. There is this one particular scene where Martha and Spencer within the bodies of smoking hot Karen Gillan and Dwayne Johnson act in the age-old awkward teenager “I like you” exchange. It is just something special. It is so recognizable, but as it is coming out of middle-aged movie stars, it is also very funny. This movie is something special and can be shown to anyone anywhere.