In 1969, Alan Parrish ( Adam Hann-Byrd, Robin Williams) finds a mysterious boardgame, Jumanji, and takes it home. He and his friend Sarah (Laura Bell Bundy, Bonnie Hunt) start playing and Alan gets sucked into the game until someone rolls a 5 or an 8. But because Sarah is chased out of the house by African bats and is deemed crazy after trying to share her experience with the game, Alan is stuck in Jumanji for 26 years. The game falls into the hands of Peter (Bradley Pierce) and Judy (Kirsten Dunst) who are the ones to finally release Alan from the game, but not without releasing some terrors from the jungle first! In order for everything to go back to normal they need to finish the game.
Jumanji is one of my favorite Robin Williams movies despite the CGI bats and elephants scaring me as a kid. For a movie made in 1995, the CGI looks pretty good except for the spiders. Those look cheesy. They still creep me out though. I hate spiders that bad!
This is a fun fantasy adventure movie for families with a darker take on the lesson on the importance of finishing what you start. If you don’t, you might get sucked into a board game forever!
Jumanji gets an upgrade for the 21st Century. Board games are old school so Jumanji transforms from board game to video game when it resurfaces in 1996 in search of its next victim.
20 years later, Spencer (Alex Wolff, Dwayne Johnson), Fridge (Ser’Darius Blain, Kevin Hart), Martha (Morgan Turner, Karen Gillan) and Bethany ( Morgan Iseman, Jack Black) land themselves in detention. They find the game in the school’s new computer center, and it isn’t long before they’re sucked into playing! In order to get out, they have to break the find the stranded player (Nick Jonas ♥️), break the island’s curse, and “call out its name!”
When the reboot was announced, I was completely against it. Throw the original in a vault and throw away the key. DON’T TOUCH IT! Thankfully the reboot was more of a continuation, and it was actually GOOD! I LOVE IT so much that I own it! They were respectful of the original while being its own thing.
PS. Someone please cast Nick Jonas in more projects. He’s a decent actor. Fun to look at too! 😍
Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)
Rated PG-13 for adventure action, suggestive content and some language
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Principal Bentley: …this is what you should be thinking about: Who you are… in this moment of time… and who you want to be. You get one life. You decide how you’re gonna spend it. Fortunately… there is no better place for self-reflection… than detention.
At the end of Welcome to the Jungle, Jumanji was destroyed, since then Spencer has collected all the pieces, reassembled it, and has decided to play another round in order to regain the confidence he’s lost. He goes solo for this one, but it isn’t long before Martha, Fridge, and Bethany go in to get him out. Spencer’s grandfather Eddie (Danny DeVito) and Eddie’s former best friend, Milo (Danny Glover), accidentally get pulled into the game too!
Same game but different challenges including rampaging desert ostriches, being attacked by Mandrills on moving rope bridges, and taking back the Fire Jewel from Jurgen the Brutal (Rory McCann). And characters end up with different avatars. Spencer ends up playing as a woman, Ming Fleetfoot (Awkwafina), and Bethany ends up as horse named Cyclone.
Jumanji: The Next Leval is just as good as its predecessor which is rare for a sequel. The actors are excellent at playing their switched around characters. Awkwafina knocked it out of the park with her Danny DeVito impression, and Jack Black was born to play a teenage girl! A must-sequel! I look forward to the next one.
2¢ Movie Reviews 