Jumanji: The Next Level

Ten Second Review: It doesn’t feel as fresh as the first and still nowhere near the depth of the original, Jumanji 2 struggles most trying to hold your attention.

I’m a big Jumanji fan. When we were kids, my sister and I would make a b-line for the discount bin at blockbusters, find weird films and rinse them out. Jumanji was one of the gems we define it’ll rinsed. When I heard that Dwayne Johnson was gonna be in a remake or sequel or loose successor, I was, to be polite, concerned. To my surprise it was an enjoyable riff on the original and a nice way to update a concept without just repeating an existing idea. When a sequel was announced this surprise became optimism and that optimism has been punished.

A year or so after the first in the series, all four of our heroes are off at college. They still text regularly and as they’re home for the holidays they want to make sure they meet up. Spencer isn’t having the best time at college and what he really wants is to feel like he did in the game again. He wants to feel like Bravestone. When he doesn’t show up, the others go looking for him and when they realise he’s gone back into Jumanji, they decide they have to go and save him.

By and large this film is fine. If had been the first in the series it might have even been interesting, but with the debut’s strength being it’s original take on the existing property, this starts to feel a little flat.

It isn’t helped by our main characters playing new characters. Bar Jack Black, no one seems fully comfortable in their acting choices and it seems stunted for the entire first portion inside the game.

Akwafina is a welcome addition and adds a fresh note to the team but overall the film seems a tad stale. With the addition of characters we aren’t made to care about, there is time dedicated to narrative lines that only really detract from the overall story. Focusing on the strained friendship of the core characters may have been a better direction as it expands the already popular parts of film,  deepening our care of the characters, instead of just aimlessly expanding the overall cast.

This film is probably more fitting of what I imagined the first film would be like, but as a follow up to a decent enough film, it’s a little depressing.