Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle
Published April 22, 2018
Film info
- Title Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle
- Director Jake Kasdan
- Year 2017
- Run time 1hr 59m
- Genres Comedy, Fantasy, Action, Adventure
- Tagline The game has evolved
Four teenagers in detention discover an old video console with a game they’ve never heard of. When they decide to play, they are immediately sucked into the jungle world of Jumanji in the bodies of their avatars (Dwayne Johnson, Jack Black, Kevin Hart, and Karen Gillan). They’ll have to complete the adventure of their lives filled with fun, thrills and danger or be stuck in the game forever!
Live blog
| Time | Comment |
|---|---|
| 1:24 | The board game!! Hooray! |
| 2:54 | The wood finish on the games console is retro. |
| 4:04 | “The world is a terrifying place, be careful of everything.” |
| 9:43 | These neurotic kids are a lot of fun. |
| 11:39 | It’s like a mini Breakfast Club, the jock the pretty girl, the nerd all gathered together for detention. |
| 18:20 | The Rock noticing his muscles is a lot of fun. |
| 22:29 | “You don’t get in the water with a backpack, everyone knows that.” |
| 29:25 | This is so meta, I love it. |
| 32:49 | His strength is his weakness. Weird. |
| 52:16 | Snake, venom, I see where this is going. |
| 54:39 | Or not! |
| 1:01:40 | Alan Parrish reference! |
| 1:05:28 | Amy Pond is flirting with The Rock. I can’t even. |
| 1:08:37 | Backpack power. |
| 1:17:13 | Snakes and helicopters so far. Damn film. |
| 1:23:13 | Aww, Bethany doing the nice thing! |
| 1:32:21 | “It’s a lot easier to be brave when you have lives to spare.” |
| 1:41:46 | I totally lost count of the lives, I guess that’s what they wanted. |
| 1:49:02 | “You wanna go backpacking, like.. in nature?” |
Conclusions
As much as I love and trust The Rock, despite his slight over-saturation of literally everything at the moment, I was dubious about this one. The original Jumanji is a real cult classic (although it didn’t serve quite so well on our recent re-watch of it).
I should have trusted Mr Johnson because this was a fantastic two hours of fun, drama, over-acting and generally good vibes. I loved the story - it was a great way of updating the old story without rewriting history or sacrificing any of the past. The characters were good, both young and old. At one point, Mr C said he wanted to watch the film about the high school kids rather than have them get sucked into the game, but once that did happen, it was even more fun.
Seeing the actors having to display a different side to themselves was also interesting - it could have been really creepy to have Jack Black portraying a teenage girl but he did it really well with vulnerability and sass in equal measure.
Overall, a really fun ride stacked with emotion and one that will be rewatchable in future as well. Hooray!
Rating: 5/5.
Rating: 5 / 5