I have to confess that I did saw the original Jumanji for the first time last year. And although the CGI clearly was made in a different era, it was still a very entertaining film that not only had moments of tension, but also an emotional charge thanks to Robin Williams and his character. A board game came to life and everyone who played it was obliged to continue playing until the end, if you could at least survive the various attacks of different animals. A remake was not really necessary, but if a film is successful, you can almost guarantee nowadays that it will get made. I was not really looking forward it, but the fact that Dwayne Johnson and Kevin Hart (together with Jack Black) would play the leading roles and were fun to watch in Central Intelligence, I hoped that Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle would turn out to be fun.
At the beginning of the film, the board game is found, but immediately it becomes clear that the starting point is slightly different. The one who gets the game immediately asks “Who still plays board games?” and when he is asleep the box changes into a game console. A few years later, it is found by a couple of students during detention and it does not take long before they all end up in the video game. They are no longer in their own body, but inhabit of the avatars in the game. They will have to play the game now and try to survive various dangers.
If you can expect one thing from Jumanji it is fun. This is not about situations that are exciting, but that are primarily meant to make you have a good time and that works very well. Jack Black is hilarious as a girl who suddenly has a male body (and needs help when she has to pee). The character that ends up in Kevin Hart’s body, a big American Football player, has to get used to it and the nerd in the group suddenly has the body of The Rock. The actors know how to play those facts convincingly. Action scenes are (although CGI) nice and it is a film which keeps things going and doesn’t have a boring moment. The fact that the slightly more serious tone from the original is missing can therefore be forgiven. This might actually be one of the best videogame movies there is (although this isn’t based on one) as it smartly uses all the weaknesses of them (repeating lines, characters running in place etc).
[score8]