Review: Jumanji: The Next Level

I was a big fan of the original Jumanji movie with Robin Williams. So when I heard about Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, the 2017 sequel, I was excited to see it. But at the same time, I was skeptical. How could it live up to the original? Especially without Robin Williams since he died in 2014? Suprisingly, I very much enjoyed Welcome to the Jungle. It took some liberties by morphing the original board game into a video game, but the end result was a fresh angle on Jumanji which catered to a generation that grew up on video games. The latest film in the franchise, Jumanji: The Next Level, was definitely enjoyable as well. However, it fell short of the previous installment as it became a little too convoluted in order to include more characters.

In the opening scenes of the movie, we learned that it's been a few years since Spencer (played by Alex Wolff), Martha (played by Morgan Turner), Fridge (played by Ser'Darius Blain) and Bethany (played by Madison Iseman) successfully escaped Jumanji in Welcome to the Jungle. The four teenagers have since graduated from high school and have gone their separate ways. All four still keep in touch, though, and seemed to be doing well with the exception of Spencer. Spencer had been having difficulty balancing college and work, especially since breaking up with Martha. As an escape, he decided to return to Jumanji and disappeared. Once his friends found out what had happened, they tried to go into the game after him. However, something went wrong. Instead of taking the three remaing friends, the game took Matha, Fridge, Eddie (Spencer's grandfather played by Danny DeVito), and Milo (Eddie's former best friend played by Danny Glover). Once inside the game, the four took the form of the avatars we got to know from the last Jumanji movie, Dr. Smolder Bravestone (played by Dwayne Johnson), Franklin Finbar (played by Kevin Hart), Shelly Oberon (played by Jack Black), and Ruby Roundhouse (played by Karen Gillan). Eddie and Milo were understandably confused. So it was up to Martha and Fridge to lead the way as they try to find Spencer and beat the game once gain.

The main problem with this film was that it had too many characters. In Welcome to the Jungle, it was a set group of four players who got sucked into the game. And along the way, they discovered a fifth player who entered the game years ago. But in The Next Level, there were a total of seven players. In addition to the main four, we also got the returning Seaplane McDonough (played by Nick Jonas), Ming Fleetfoot (played by Awkwafina), and a horse. That's right, a horse. And with this many characters, the plot had to be expanded to give each character a meaningful role. This made the story unnecessarily convoluted and hard to follow at times.

A big plus of the new Eddie and Milo characters, though, was that they brought a great new comedic facet to the film. In Welcome to the Jungle, we saw Dwayne Johnson play Smolder Bravestone and Kevin Hart play Franklin Finbar as scared teenagers who just unwittingly became part of a video game. In The Next Level, we also saw the actors play Bravestone and Finbar. But this time, they did so as confused old men who thought that they had just gone to the great beyond. This allowed for some great laugh out loud moments as the two were now portrayed as senior citizens who know nothing about video games and are used to moving at a snail's pace.

This being a Jumanji movie, the audience naturally expected plenty of action scenes with a variety of creatures. And in that department, The Next Level definitely didn't disappoint. In fact, I think the CGI department worked overtime on this film. In addition to random attacks from animals like hippos and snakes, there was an extended chase scene between our heroes and a flock of ostriches. In addition, the group was attacked by a gang of killer monkeys as they treked through a maze of rope bridges. And of course, there was plenty of butt-kicking in fight scenes featuring Dr Bravestone and Ruby Roundhouse. All these action scenes were imaginative and well-choreographed, and they allowed me to forget about the weaknesses in the plot. Compared to the original 1995 Jumanji, the animals in this movie looked much more realistic and life-like. This goes to show how computers have revolutionized the film making process in the last 20 years.

In general, I was a little disappointed with Jumanji: The Next Level. But to be fair, that was partly because the previous two Jumanji films set the bar quite high with their unique premises, something The Next Level lacked. Essentially, The Next Level was just a repeat of Welcome to the Jungle with additional characters, which ended up being a bit of a detriment. However, with that said, those characters did introduce new humor aspects to the film. Plus, the movie was packed with great action sequences, even more so than the last two Jumanji movies. So overall, it was still a fun ride and definitely deserved a thumbs up.

As a bit of a side note, during the end credits, the audience was treated to a scene setting up for an additional installment in the movie franchise. Given the success of the films thus far, this is not surprising. If I was to interpret this scene accurately, it seemed to imply that elements from the Jumanji world will be entering our world like in the original Jumanji movie as opposed to characters from our world entering Jumaji like in Welcome to the Jungle and The Next Level. If that's the case, this could provide the fresh persepctive that The Next Level was missing and go full circle to back to how the game worked in the original Jumanji. I am already looking forward to it.