Review: Jumanji Welcome to the Jungle

There are a lot of clever touches in Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, not the least of which is the concept itself. Instead of having the game's jungle beasts rampage through the outside world, the game's players are swallowed into the world of the game itself. This may seem a bit been there, done that on paper until one sees how the filmmakers use its A-list cast to reinvigorate what could have been a very tiresome gimmick.

Both a sequel to and a continuation of the 1995 film starring the late Robin Williams (to whom the film is a tribute), Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle begins in 1996, one year after the events of the first film, as a teenager named Alex Vreeke wakes up one night to discover that the board game his father had found on the beach, and which he had ignored in favour of his preferred video games, has transformed itself into a video game cartridge. Soon after he begins playing it, he's sucked into the machine and is never seen or heard from again.

Cut to twenty years later - Alex is a local legend due to his unexplained disappearance and his father is a hollowed out shell of a man. Meanwhile, four schoolmates stumble upon the video game in their school's storage room where they're serving their detention. Deciding to kill some time by playing the game, the four suddenly find themselves literally dropped into the world of Jumanji. Here's where the fun begins. Nerdy germaphobe Spencer (Alex Wolff) has now become his chosen avatar, Dr. Smolder Bravestone (Dwayne Johnson), a fearless and muscular archaeologist; footballer Fridge (Ser'Darius Blain) turns into the diminutive Franklin "Mouse" Finbar (Kevin Hart), a zoologist who is also Smolder's weapons valet; shy loner Martha (Morgan Turner) is now the hot and badass Ruby Roundhouse (Karen Gillan). Best of all, narcissistic popular girl Bethany (Madison Iseman) is distraught not only because she has been separated from her cell phone, but her avatar is the overweight, middle-aged cartographer Professor Sheldon "Shelly" Oberon (Jack Black).

The quartet soon realise they're in the video game, have special skills and weaknesses, that they have three lives each, and that the only way they can escape is to return a jewel to the jaguar statue from where it was stolen by big-game hunter Van Pelt (Bobby Cannavale), who has a squad of deadly goons and the power to control all the animals in the land. Yet that's truly beside the point for the film's enjoyment derives from watching its stars poke fun at their own images, both playing to and against type. Seeing Johnson turn on Bravestone's smouldering intensity is a hoot as is Spencer's never-ending surprise at viewing his muscular body. Ditto for his Central Intelligence co-star Hart, who mines hilarity from Fridge's frustration at not only being Spencer/Smolder's sidekick but from having speed, the very thing he was known for in real life, be one of his weaknesses in the game life. The always charming Gillan, meanwhile, is winning as Martha learns to embrace her inner flirt and warrior. Then there is Jack Black, who is comic perfection as a whiny, self-obsessed 17-year-old girl.

Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle may often be shallow and juvenile, but it is designed to be a relentlessly fun ride. For the most part, it succeeds thanks to its game and highly engaging cast.

Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle

Directed by: Jake Kasdan

Written by: Chris McKenna, Erik Sommers, Scott Rosenberg, Jeff Pinkner; based on the book by Chris Van Allsburg

Starring: Dwayne Johnson, Jack Black, Kevin Hart, Karen Gillan, Nick Jonas, Bobby Cannavale, Alex Wolff, Madison Iseman, Ser'Darius Blain, Morgan Turner, Missi Pyle, Marc Evan Jackson, Maribeth Monroe