Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle – You don’t have to be a gamer to enjoy this film…

…but it probably helps!  Direct sequels to films that are released a loooong time after the original don’t have a tendency to do that well at the Box Office (‘Basic Instinct 2’ – anyone remember that?).  Most times it appears that the original fan-base isn’t in the cinema-going demographic and the film doesn’t click with today’s audience.  However, ‘Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle’ not only does well to differentiate itself from the original, but also succeeds without the inclusion of the man who (arguably) helped make the first instalment so special – the ever excellent Robin Williams.

‘Jumanji’ was about a magic board game that sucked players in and made them play the game ‘for real’ in order to survive.  Well, in this day and age, the producers of the film obviously realise that no self-respecting kid would ever play a board game any more (sadly, in my opinion – I love a bit of Monopoly!) so they’ve brought it right up to date and turned the board game into a computer game.  So, when four high school students find themselves in detention cleaning out the school’s dusty basement, they stumble across the ‘antique’ console and decide to kill some time playing a quick game (this never happened to the ‘Breakfast Club’ did it?!).

Now, this is where the film gets a bit different.  The first ten to fifteen minutes are spent introducing us – the audience – to our young heroes.  However, as soon as they enter the computer game, all of them acquire ‘avatars’ i.e. in-game characters who are all older, hunkier and possessing skills required for completing the game.  Therefore, pretty much the entire film is spent with the kids’ ‘adult’ incarnations, but seeing as one such incarnation is Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson, that’s not so bad. 

So, our young heroes quickly become ‘old’ heroes and have to save a fictional jungle-land from a tyrannical regime.  I guess that’s a pretty standard plot for either a modern action film or a computer game.  I suppose that’s what this film is – a standard action film and it’s enjoyable enough if that’s all you’re looking for or expecting.  However, if you’re a fan of computer games and the clichés that come with the medium, you’ll get a lot more out of it than just a few action set pieces.  It does brilliantly at poking fun of all the silly things you can expect from video games – everything from entering the game with three ‘lives’ to owning a backpack which can seemingly fit numerous ridiculously-large items in and never slow its owner down.

But, however many ‘in-jokes’ are included for us gamers and no matter how impressive the action scenes are, the film would be nothing without the stars and I have to hand it to the four (adult) actors who take the reigns for the majority of the film.  It’s because of them that this film succeeds, for they don’t just have to play ‘their’ characters – they have to play their teenage incarnations playing adult characters who are, in turn, playing clichéd computer game characters.  And, as much as I love Dwayne Johnson in everything he does, I have to say that the star of the show is Jack Black.  This is because he’s – technically – playing a spoilt teenage girl.  No, seriously.  And he does it perfectly, stealing every scene as he goes.  Also, you may not expect much ‘character development’ in a film about kids being drawn into a computer game, but I thought there was actually a decent enough ‘journey’ for the youngsters (albeit in their adult bodies!) to go on and they ended their story as different people to how they began it.

So, if you’re only looking for a run-of-the-mill action film to put your brain on hold to, then you’ll certainly find it here.  However, if, like me, you’re a gamer and want to see a film that lovingly pokes fun at everything we hold dear, you’ll definitely find that here to.  Special mention to something that happens at the end.  I expected something to happen between a pair of characters and it didn’t.  Something more ‘realistic’ happened instead and I found myself awarding ‘kudos points’ to the film’s writers for not taking the predictable route at the end.

7/10 if I woke up on Groundhog Day and had to watch this again, I could live with that