Making a sequel sure is tough. More so when you’re making a sequel to a sequel. More so when you’re making a sequel to a movie that turned out to be surprisingly great. 2017’s Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle was one of those rare efforts at rebooting a dormant creative property that actually paid off. (Because God knows there was exactly no one – not one single person – over the last 22 years who has ever said: “Man, I wish someone would make a sequel to that Jumanji movie from 1995.”)
What made Welcome to the Jungle such a great movie was how well it deconstructed the classic high school comedy. The nerd, the introvert, the popular jock, and the Instagram princess find themselves in a Breakfast Club-type situation, only all of it takes place inside the terrible, horrible, no-good video game world of Jumanji. Body-swapping is used as a tool to subvert clichéd tropes regarding image, identity, and self-worth. And the Hero’s Journey is played out in order to show us that the real winner of Jumanji is the friends we made along the way.
Jake Kasdan picked at the bones of Chris Van Allsburg’s original text and deftly weaved in a new take on the story that was sweet, nostalgic, charming, self-aware, and, on occasion, faintly surreal. He winked knowingly at gender politics. He paid respect to the Robin Williams original. But mostly, he made something that was just good old-fashioned fun. The kind of movie that everyone from all four quadrants could enjoy.
Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle knew exactly what it was. Jumanji: The Next Level just feels like a series of missed opportunities.
The movie begins with our four heroes no longer in high school. Spencer is now in NYU and looking miserable. Bethany, clearly inspired by her Jumanji avatar, is out exploring the real jungles of the world. And we aren’t quite sure what Martha or Fridge are up to. What we do know is that they’re all on a WhatsApp group together. Because friendship.
From here Jumanji: The Next Level is pretty much a rehash of the last movie. Spencer, undone by his insecurities, figures that the best way to regain his confidence is to go back into the video game and once again become Smolder Bravestone. Things go a little kaka, he disappears, and his friends decide that they have to go back in and save him. Because friendship.
But wait. Not all of them make it through. For some reason Bethany gets left behind and Spencer’s grandfather, Eddie (Danny DeVito), and his one-time best friend, Milo (Danny Glover), get sucked in instead. (Why? I don’t know why? Because magic. Because Jumanji. Because Johnson and Hart wanted to show us some range. Because.)
Given the happily ever after at the end of the last movie, there is absolutely no tension in this movie between Spencer, Martha, Fridge, and Bethany. How could there be? They were already the best of friends. There was no real conflict left between them. Sure there is the fact that Spencer has a tendency to bluetick his friends. But that’s the extent of their drama. There is also a brief allusion to Spencer suffering from imposter syndrome, but it is fleeting and left unexplored. In fact, everything the quartet seem to be going through feels forced at best and completely irrelevant at worst.
And then there is the new story arc involving franchise newcomers DeVito and Glover. The both of them bicker throughout the movie like an old married couple, and as fun as it is watching Dwayne Johnson and Kevin Hart play out their real-life bromance on the big screen, it nevertheless feels like a waste of a good idea. Here you are, presented with two characters in their twilight years, who are transported into a videogame and transformed into younger, stronger, better looking versions of themselves, and given not one, not two, but three chances at life. It is a perfect set-up for a metaphoric meditation about death and aging. But what we get instead are a series of rejected one-liners from a Neil Simon play.
And then there’s all of the hard work done in the first movie to build this video game world and establish the rules that govern it. There is very little here that develops those ideas or utilises them in new ways. In Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, there was a real sense of anxiousness whenever a character died. How many lives was that? How many do they need to complete their quest? In this movie, it’s just an opportunity for a few more cheap laughs.
The best thing I can say about Jumanji: The Next Level is that it is more. Much more. Every set piece is bigger. Every action sequence is more complex. Did you enjoy all of that body-swapping in the first movie? Well, here’s even more of that. Forget motorcycle ninjas, here’s Dwayne Johnson punching an ostrich in the face. Were you terrified by that ravenous space baboon in Ad Astra? Here are hundreds of vicious Mandrill monkeys.
The best sequels always go bigger, and Jake Kasdan does take things to the next level. It is a real shame, however, that the same kind of escalation we see in action doesn’t apply to character or story. Not for a moment did I feel that any of the characters were in real peril. And because the movie was built around a series of action set pieces and not the other way around, there was, at no time, when I felt that anything was at stake.
Jumanji: The Next Level is fine. It does exactly what it says on the tin. It is funny at moments. It is entertaining at times. But mostly, it coasts on the weaponized charm of its four leads.
Jumanji: The Next Level
123 minutes
Director: Jake Kasdan
Writers: Jake Kasdan, Jeff Pinkner, and Scott Rosenberg
Cast: Dwayne Johnson, Jack Black, Kevin Hart, Karen Gillan, Nick Jonas, Awkwafina, Alex Wolff, Morgan Turner, Ser’Darius Blain, Madison Iseman, Danny Glover, and Danny DeVito
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