Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Entertainment
  3. Reviews

‘Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle’ review

A recycled story can't dim the sheer star power in the new 'Jumanji'

Rick Marshall
By

Can a cast of popular actors help a sequel 22 years in the making live up to the legacy of the original film? Read on for our Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle review!

Back in 1995, the original Jumanji gave audiences a thrilling, family-friendly adventure featuring a pair of orphaned siblings whose lives are upended when a mysterious board game brings all the wonder and danger of a fantastic jungle to life in their New Hampshire town. Celebrated director Joe Johnston packed heart, excitement, and laughs into the film, which also featured the late Robin Williams in one of his many memorable performances.

More than two decades later, Bad Teacher and Sex Tape director Jake Kasdan brings the story of that iconic game back to the big screen in Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, a sequel to the 1995 film that gives it a contemporary update, more mature themes, and a cast of familiar faces. Although it doesn’t quite capture the same sense of wonder and suspense that fueled the first film, Welcome to the Jungle still manages to offer an entertaining adventure — primarily due to its charismatic, talented stars.

The film’s accomplished quartet play off one another expertly and make the scenes they share more entertaining together.

Related

Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson headlines a cast in Welcome to the Jungle that also features Jack Black, Kevin Hart, and Guardians of the Galaxy actress Karen Gillan. The actors portray a quartet of colorful game avatars inhabited by four high-school students who discover a dusty old copy of Jumanji — now in video game form — while stuck in detention together. Tasked with returning a magical jewel to the massive stone idol it was stolen from, the teenagers must learn to work together using the strengths and weaknesses inherent to their in-game avatars in order to return to the real world.

The film’s accomplished quartet of camera-friendly actors are more than capable of carrying a film individually, but instead of stepping on each other’s toes in Welcome to the Jungle, they play off one another expertly and make the scenes they share more entertaining together. Johnson and Hart’s chemistry was already a known commodity thanks to last year’s Central Intelligence, but the addition of comedy veteran Black, as well as Gillan — who’s shown a knack for comedic timing in the Guardians films, as well as several seasons of Doctor Who — makes a funny cast considerably funnier.

Along similar lines, while Johnson’s action chops are well established, anyone unfamiliar with Gillan’s ability to kick ample amounts of on-screen butt will get well-acquainted with this fact over the course of Welcome to the Jungle. Holding her own in both the action and comedy scenes along the likes of such heavyweights (literally and figuratively) in both genres, Gillan just might be the film’s best-kept secret and its most pleasant surprise.

Excellent performances aside, there’s still quite a bit that separates the 2017 version of Jumanji from its predecessor, and the success of the film will likely depend on how audiences respond to those key differences (or how prepared they are for those differences).

Where the 1995 film featured a pair of young children dealing with dangerous elements brought into their world by the magic board game, the sequel pits the various threats posed by the game against teenage players. That change in age shifts the comedy of the film — and its entire tone, really — away from the childhood innocence of the original film and into the realm of rampant genital jokes and raging hormones. This change is reflected in the more restricted PG-13 rating for Welcome to the Jungle (the original Jumanji carried a more family-friendly PG rating), but it might be an unwelcome surprise for audiences expecting another all-ages adventure.

With the exception of Flight of the Conchords actor Rhys Darby, who plays the group’s initial guide to the world of Jumanji, the supporting cast of Welcome to the Jungle also leaves a bit to be desired. Boardwalk Empire actor Bobby Cannavale is a relatively forgettable villain with ill-defined magical abilities, and musician-turned-actor Nick Jonas doesn’t throw himself into his role as another teenage player stuck in the game with nearly as much gusto as his co-stars.

Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle' review
Image used with permission by copyright holder

The film’s sequel status also works against it at times, as it eliminates some of the surprises that made the first film so entertaining. Newcomers to the franchise will likely have a stronger reaction to the characters facing an unexpected hippo attack or rhino stampede than those familiar with the original film, which first introduced many of the plot points recycled for Welcome to the Jungle.

What it lacks in fresh storytelling elements it makes up for with a talented cast of actors.

As far as sequels go, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle is a fun follow-up to the 1995 film that borrows from its predecessor without going the wholesale remake route. What it lacks in fresh storytelling elements or a sense of genuine wonder, it makes up for with a talented cast of actors who never cease to hold your attention, whether they’re cracking jokes or battling bad guys.

Audiences looking for a relatively inoffensive, thoroughly entertaining adventure at the movies could do far worse than Welcome to the Jungle, and in offering that sort of unabashedly escapist experience, the Jumanji sequel channels one of the most important elements of the original 1995 film that inspired it.

Editors' Recommendations

Rick Marshall
Rick Marshall
Former Digital Trends Contributor
A veteran journalist with more than two decades of experience covering local and national news, arts and entertainment, and…
Operation Seawolf review: nice Nazis? No thanks!
Dolph Lundgren holds onto a pipe inside a U-Boat in a scene from Operation Seawolf.

At a time when anti-Semitic extremists are storming the U.S Capitol, running for office, and declaring war on Jewish people via social media, it might not be the best time for a movie that expects you to sympathize with Nazis. And yet, that hasn't stopped Operation Seawolf from sailing into theaters and on-demand streaming services this month.

The film, which follows the crew of a German U-boat during the waning days of World War II, casts Dolph Lundgren (Rocky IV) as German war hero Capt. Hans Kessler, who's ordered to lead the Nazis' remaining U-boats on a desperate (and likely fatal) mission to attack the U.S. on its own soil. As he and his crew make their way toward New York City in one final bid to turn the tide of war, Kessler finds himself struggling with both the internal politics of the ship and his own sense of duty as the Third Reich crumbles around him.

Read more
Conversations with A Killer: The Jeffrey Dahmer Tapes review: killer’s words yield little insight
A superimposed image of Jeffrey Dahmer in Conversations with a Killer.

It’s spooky season this month, and that means the atrocity mine is currently being plundered by content creators across America. The three-episode docuseries Conversations with a Killer: The Jeffrey Dahmer Tapes, directed by noted documentarian Joe Berlinger (Brother's Keeper, Paradise Lost), is Netflix’s second project tackling the infamous cannibal/necrophiliac/serial killer to debut in a matter of weeks. It follows Ryan Murphy’s 10-hour miniseries drama, Dahmer-Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story. This Dahmer double dose mirrors the barrage of Ted Bundy content that Netflix put out in early 2019, following up the Zac Efron-led drama Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile with the docuseries Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes (also directed by Berlinger). 

As was the case with Bundy, Netflix is convinced that a multipronged examination of Dahmer could lead to a better understanding of his psychology and motivations, teaching viewers warning signs or expanding our capacity for empathy. Or maybe they recognize that people are addicted to unspeakable tragedies and will do anything they can to maximize viewers’ compulsion for true crime? Attempting to satisfy on all accounts, The Dahmer Tapes oscillates uneasily between character study, social commentary, and pure shock value, landing somewhere in between all three.
In Dahmer's own words

Read more
Amsterdam review: An exhausting, overlong conspiracy thriller
Christian Bale, Margot Robbie, and John David Washington walk through a lobby together in Amsterdam.

Amsterdam could have been forgiven for being a lot of things, but dull is not one of them. The new film from writer-director David O. Russell boasts one of the most impressive ensemble casts of the year and is photographed by Emmanuel Lubezki, one of Hollywood’s premier cinematographers. Beyond that, its kooky premise and even wackier cast of characters open the door for Amsterdam to be the kind of screwball murder mystery that O. Russell, at the very least, seems uniquely well-equipped to make.

Instead, Amsterdam is a disaster of the highest order. It’s a film made up of so many disparate, incongruent parts that it becomes clear very early on in its 134-minute runtime that no one involved — O. Russell most of all — really knew what it is they were making. It is a misfire of epic proportions, a comedic conspiracy thriller that is written like a haphazard screwball comedy but paced like a meandering detective drama. Every element seems to be at odds with another, resulting in a film that is rarely funny but consistently irritating.

Read more