Jumanji: The Next Level

Score:  B

Directed by Jake Kasdan
Starring Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart, Karen Gillan, Jack Black, Danny DeVito, Danny Glover
Running Time: 123 minutes
Rated PG-13

Long Story Short:  Jumanji: The Next Level is the expected follow-up to the surprisingly effective 2017 action reboot - and, surprise once again, it's not an empty money grab.  The filmmakers kept as much of the original intact as they dared, but any concerns about that are sidelined by Johnson and Hart pulling a new imitation scheme, this time as grumpy old men.  Not as fresh as the 2017 film, but it's often just as hilarious, and the action to the bits of drama are made with just as much care.  Recommended.


Young friends Spencer, Fridge, Martha, and Bethany have graduated and drifted apart, but plan a reunion when they all return to their hometown.  Spencer, however, yearns for the excitement and empowerment of his magical - if dangerous - experience in the Jumanji video game, and so he returns.  His friends suspect what happened and attempt to follow him back, but the game has a glitch and they find themselves in new "avatars" - and joined by unexpected guests.  Once again, the group is confronted with a crisis in this imaginary world with very real consequences, and it is up to them to save the day.  This time, of course, they are also looking for their lost friend, and they'll need every bit of the skill and courage they developed last time to win again.

The core cast of the Jumanji reboot of 2017 returns, and is joined by several fun and familiar faces.  Dwayne Johnson is the lead again, with a twist: for a significant part of the film, he is representing Danny DeVito's character rather than Spencer.  His attempt at the DeVito accent is unsurprisingly mediocre and inconsistent, but he seems to enjoy playing the curmudgeon, and this check on his usual tough-guy persona is once again a welcome trait.  Kevin Hart, likewise, gets to mimic Danny Glover, affecting his esteemed but hoarse and oft-confused character.  Hart does better than his co-lead, but the interplay between the two - DeVito and Glover are old friends, and Johnson and Hart pick up that element better than anything else - is even funnier, and more interesting, than that of the first film.  Jack Black gets to do Fridge this time, and while he's still good it's not riotous like in the first (it's also a little uncomfortable, at the least, to watch a middle-aged white guy mimicking a young black man).  Karen Gillan gets to be Martha again like last time, but she gets a much more bland part this time, unfortunately.  Nick Jonas, returning from the first film, and Awkwafina are also Jumanji characters in smaller roles, the latter of whom is a nice if underutilized addition.  DeVito and Glover are briefly in the film themselves, of course, and their simple presence helps lift the early, introductory parts.  The young actors get less to do this time, instead maximizing the time spent in the Jumanji video game; while understandable, since the characters have already been introduced, they are capable of doing more.

Jumanji is the best kind of sequel you can reasonably expect, keeping the best qualities of the original while mixing up the details enough to keep it pretty fresh.  The overall structure is basically the same as 2017's Welcome to the Jungle - brief drama with young friends in the real world, entering the video game world using adult avatars, and fulfilling a standard adventure quest while rescuing a missing real-world companion.  This works out alright, though they definitely need something new if/when they do another one.  Rather than shake up the plot structure, they reshuffled the specifics, most significantly in the franchise's key concept of Hollywood-star avatars representing the characters in Jumanji.  As already mentioned, the modern day star duo of Johnson-Hart imitating DeVito and Glover is comedy gold.  The film's second act, upon re-entering Jumanji, is particularly good, with Johnson and Hart's "Smolder Bravestone" and "Mouse Finbar" bickering and generally being awed and confused by their new, younger bodies and the mysteries of the video game world.  Sadly, they don't stay that way through the whole film, but it's worth the cost of admission itself.  While the missing-person quest in the first is played as a mystery, The Next Level opts for the search for a main character you already know (though for me the Johnson-Hart antics overrode this and any other "plot" elements).  The action, like in the first, really is secondary.  While it does a better job at traditional blockbuster action, via desert ostrich chases and rope bridge escapes, it's not as clever at making it seem like a video game world being "played".  The sequel also interestingly pushes the kid characters aside in favor of their elders.  It's a pretty basic feud, as you'd expect, but it doesn't get swallowed up by the action of the climax, and resolves nicely.  The bad guys don't pose much of a threat, but focus on the struggles of the individuals and conflicts among friends is even better.

***

Jumanji: The Next Level is hardly groundbreaking, but it is the way Hollywood should be making more of its blockbusters.  After thoroughly enjoying the surprise hit Welcome to the Jungle in 2017, I was pretty much automatically onboard for the sequel.  As much as I gripe about Hollywood relying too much on sequels and reboots, they can still be done well when they retain the elements that made the original special while mixing up other parts enough to make it also feel new.  It's a difficult balance, and why so many attempts fail.  The Zombieland sequel earlier this year succeeded for many of the same reasons that The Next Level does.  I would rather watch either of those films again than a lot of "original" Hollywood blockbuster trash, let alone something from the growing pile of lifeless reboots/sequels (I'm looking at you, Men In Black: International).  Hopefully Johnson and Hart will keep making movies together; though if more Jumanjis are among them, I'd like to warn them to tread those waters carefully.



* By Source, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=61874882