Throwback Thursday: Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (2017)

Before you check out Jumanji: The Next Level, let’s take a look back at the reboot that started it all, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle.

Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle puts a semi-fresh spin on everybody’s favorite board game that so happens can result in your death (Ouija boards aren’t fun). Right from the start this film hammers the fact that this is a modern take on Jumanji. Is it a board game now? No, because “nobody plays board games anymore.”It’s actually a video game! This film tries to break down 1996 consumer culture in a modern way, but when we flash forward to the year 2016 the postmodern social media consumer culture (which they end up thinking their critiquing) ends up being completely phoned in.

We’re introduced to our high school protagonists in such a lazy, hackneyed way. It’s the 21st century now, technology is becoming even more than a daily part of our lives, so the best way to communicate this to our audience is having each of our characters play a postmodern stereotype! None of the characters are remotely likeable in any way. Our main hero, Spencer (Johnson), is an average joe who plays video games and is incapable of talking to girls. Fridge (Hart) yes, his name is actually Fridge is a dumb football jock who is failing all his classes. Bethany (Black) is a social media obsessed dumb blonde who takes selfies before class and facetimes during tests. Martha (Gillan) is the early-on likeable character who wants to get into Ivy League schools but has a habit of talking down to her superiors. Our characters are all brought together via detention and finally they enter Jumanji and the movie becomes entertaining.

Johnson is absolutely hilarious, and to no surprise is the strongest part of the movie. He oozes charisma, while also maintaining the shyness and early cowardice of his character Spencer. Hart is finally tolerable in something, playing off the other characters and interactions rather than trying to force feed the audience whiny jokes. Black as Bethany made for some of the most hit-or-miss moments of the film. Some jokes were hilarious (Bethany teaching Martha how to strut and flirt with guys), while others feel completely flat (If you’re a fan of juvenile male anatomy humour you will love this one). Gillan as the male ass-kicking heroine was amazing, as her scenes feature some of the only good action in the entire movie, as well as some of the best humour present. Oh yeah, and Nick Jonas is in this too and that’s pretty much it.

The story was insufferably predictable, with every cliche character having a cliche arc, but some were actually enjoyable. Bethany, in regards to character arc, has the most emotionally satisfying one. Her character starts off unbearable and surprisingly turns into one of the most likeable by the end. The theme of technology in our postmodern world is relevant throughout, but we never skim past anything deeper other than “we shouldn’t constantly be on our phones.”

Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, as a film, is much better than the original. However; something that the original succeeded at whereas this once failed is the character of Van Pelt (Robin Williams). In the original, Van Pelt gave emotional levity that connected Alan to the idea of his father. The Van Pelt in this film is nothing more than a generic bad guy who wants to stop our protagonists. Looking at it from a video game perspective, a lot of villains in simple video games are just hamstrung antagonists with no emotional backstory. It would have been nice to have this Van Pelt offer an emotional attachment our heroes rather than being a disposable nobody. Speaking of callbacks to the original, Jumanji 2 has a few that fans will enjoy.

In the end, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle is more of a spiritual sequel rather than a direct sequel. This would end up a smart choice as they don’t have to rely so heavily on nostalgia to guide the audience.

*still courtesy of Sony Pictures*

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Corbin Stewart

Big Star Wars Nerd. Love all kinds of movies, but my favorites are sci-fi, indies, and superhero films. I created SplittingEdge Reviews with my friend Dakota, because we love expressing our views on the different kind of music and films that are out there. You can give me a follow on Twitter: @CorbinStewart12 or Instagram: corbin_stewart
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