Praise4Media - Jumanji: The Next Level

Welcome to Jumanji, again

Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle was a massive hit for Sony, moreso even than the original adaptation, a sequel was greenlit but rather than alter the formula drastically they decide to stick with the core cast. I guess we’re still more of a video game society when it comes to games and we haven’t really evolved past it yet... Jumanji VR, now there’s a horrifying idea for a sequel.

Anyway, released in 2019, the film was another box office success, raking in $800m on its $132m budget. A 71% and 87% Rotten Tomatoes rating with Critics and Audiences respectively also speaks to the film’s merit. But it’s been a couple of years now, let’s dive into the film and see if it holds up under scrutiny.

So you might not remember this, but there were actually 4 teenagers in the first movie named Spencer, Fridge, Bethany and Martha. They went through most of their character development in the last film, so let’s see what they’re up to.

OK, Bethany is doing some charity work and exploring the greatest natural environments a Hollywood green screen set can provide. Do the waterfalls look off to anyone else? I feel like the water should be falling faster. Fridge is working out, he’s apparently a star football player now or something, it really doesn’t matter, Martha and Spencer both went to college, but not the same one. Spencer is it NYU, balancing his time with a part-time job. No time like the present to start paying off that crippling debt, I guess.

He gets the raw end of it too, working the crummy job, his suitcase breaking and him heading off to the bus in the rain. On arriving home he finds his Grandfather, Eddie (Danny DeVito), has moved into the house as he’s recovering from a hip operation, also their heater is broken, a matter of extremely minimal importance. They’re sharing a room as the old gang prepare to meet up the next morning.

The next morning comes and whilst Fridge, Martha and Bethany all make it, Spencer is nowhere to be seen. They head to his house, but first Eddie gets a visit from his old friend and business partner, Milo (Danny Glover) the two hadn’t spoken since Milo retired from their restaurant business. Whilst the two catch up, Fridge, Martha and Bethany arrive looking for Spencer, they head to the basement and find that Spencer had somehow recovered the remains of the games console, and the game, which were both in bits at the end of the last film, and at their school, and has sort-of repaired it.

Thinking it’ll be the same experience as the last time, the three decide to head in to get it. However they don’t choose their player characters as they’re sucked in, Bethany is spared that fate, and somehow Milo and Eddie get pulled in as well.

OK, credit where it’s due, giving the characters different Player Avatars this time around is a great move. Martha stays as Ruby Roundhouse is the straight-woman of the group, Fridge is now in the body of Professor Shelly Oberon, the guy who could do basically nothing in the last film, Eddie is now in the body of Bravestone, which makes for interesting old man talk from The Rock. Mouse Finbar is now Milo.

Once again, before the game even gets started, time for one life to be lost as Shelly is eaten by a snake. NPC Nigel Billingsley arrives in a plane, clueing everyone in that this game is gonna be a little different to the first one. But one thing that’s the same, mcguffin jewel in the hands of villain needing to be reclaimed.

Ivan the Brutal is interesting in that he’s a physical match for Bravestone, he may also be a player character but that’s neither here nor there. He also supposedly murdered Bravestone’s parents which is a completely pointless factoid. It doesn’t make it more personal, Bravestone is a player character, and the personality is still of the person playing him.

Aside from that, he’s not really in it enough to be a compelling antagonist. They’re dumped into the middle of a desert and check their stats and each character has a new feature or two. Ruby is now skilled with nunchaku; Bravestone has his first weakness, Switchblade; Mouse has a linguistics skill and Shelly has a skill in geometry but weaknesses to heat and sand that really only exist for the joke, he does not die here.

They’re approached by an ostrich and because Mouse is slow with the warnings, Bravestone is killed and returns one life down. They find dune buggies and it’s a chase scene. Bravestone is able to save Mouse from some ostriches by punching them, they also make a ludicrously long cliff jump to make it through across a cliff to the Oasis.

So, the Oasis is more a desert village, I guess kinda akin to Misty Palms from Avatar: TLA, but they have a very different kind of water feature. More on that in a minute, the town has a seedy underworld run by… you’ll never guess, Switchblade. He is feeding a subordinate to his hyenas as a thief steals his key. Bravestone catches the thief as Ruby deduces that she’s a player character, she’s killed and respawns, now with the key back in the hands of the enemy.

The character is Ming Fleetfoot (Awkwafina) and she is a master of stealth and thievery, but suffers from allergies not dissimilar to Spencer himself. He explains in brief detail that he wanted to feel fearless like Bravestone but ended up in a different Player Character this time. We also are introduced to NPC The Flame, she’s Switchblade’s wife but had an affair with Bravestone, their guide tells them to follow the flame and they decide to split up. Sheldon and Ruby discover the desert fruit they were told about, the Jumanji-Berry.

It grows on a tree surrounded by glowing water, Ruby is able to reach the tree with some acrobatics but as she grabs the fruit the branch breaks and she falls in, whilst this isn’t deadly when Shelly reaches for her, the two switch bodies with Fridge now in Ruby’s body and Martha now in Shelly’s body. This doesn’t last nearly long enough as Fridge decides to do the same routine Martha just did as Ruby with the same result. But they have a Jumanji Berry and they know that can switch bodies with the use of glowing water.

Meanwhile, Ming, Bravestone and Mouse make a play for some camels. And here’s where Mouse’s linguistic skills come into use as it turns out he can talk to animals. Bravestone is told to keep guard outside and in doing so begins a massive brawl with Switchblade’s men. The camels agree to take them and the groups soon reunite, just as Switchblade fires a rocket that kills all of them.

They’re soon back and the camels are unharmed, Switchblade does not resume his attack for some reason. They head out and we get some more back and forth between Eddie and Milo, Eddie resents that Milo sold the business behind his back, this results in Milo getting a death worthy of Wile E Coyote and with that Ruby is the only one with a life spare.

The camels stop at another cliff, saying they like living so they aren’t going any further. Considering that Ivan’s palace is atop a mountain, I don’t blame them. So they next level of the game plays to the strength of Shelly. His knowledge of geometry is their best bet to solve a pattern of rotating bridges to get to the other side of the cliff. Unfortunately, it’s never that simple in Jumanji and the crew are being chased the whole way by Mandrils. It’s here that Ruby falls to her death, meaning none of them have any lives to spare.

It’s a close call by they all make it across, the Mandrils have them surrounded by they’re saved by the arrival of Seaplane and a Horse named Cyclone. Bethany had sought out the help of Alex Vreeke, and they’d come into the game together, stopping off to buy new clothes and somehow bypassing all of the levels. And no, the fact that Cyclone could fly (spoiler alert) is not an explanation as Seaplane didn’t know that. Alex is back as Seaplane and Bethany is now in Cyclone’s body.

Shelly had twisted his ankle making the jump to the finish so even with these re-enforcements they’re not exactly in great shape, not to mention that Eddie is too quick to the fight as Bravestone, and Milo too slow to the point as Mouse. Fortunately, there’s another of the Jumanji player swap sections conveniently right below them

They miss a bit of comedic opportunity here as they skip straight to having everyone in their original bodies, with Eddie now in Ming’s body and Milo now in Cyclone’s body. In spite of their lack of ability to communicate with each other now Milo’s a horse, Eddie/Ming deduces that the real reason Milo came to visit is to mend fences since he’s dying. So, odds on Milo being the one to not make it out of the game alive… yeah, pretty high right now.

The two are captured by Ivan’s men, with Seaplane as witness to warn the others. Their likely being held in different parts of the fortress, so the plan is to have Seaplane, Mouse and Shelly sneak in the front door whilst Bravestone and Ruby climb up the ice cliff around the other side to rescue Ming. Seaplane is unknown to the enemy and gets in easily. Mouse and Shelly are believed to be the brothers Kebabik, a pair of brothers Ivan was to meet with.

Climbing up the cliff gives a chance for Martha and Spencer to clear the air. Apparently seeing Martha happy made him more insecure, especially knowing the way they formed their relationship. This would’ve worked better in my opinion if it hadn’t been a couple at High School for over a year before heading to college. I feel like this would’ve cropped up sooner. Anyway, Martha admits she’s still quite insecure and there’s feeling in the back of her mind that all the kindness she’s received at college could still turn out to be a lie. I really wish there was more focus on this because it could be absolutely fascinating.

Seaplane has to avoid a convoluted deathtrap to rescue Cyclone and loses 2 lives through it. Funny how Cyclone in the only character to still have all 3 lives by the end. Guess we don’t want to see the brutal murder of a horse. It’s here that Seaplane checks Cyclone’s stats, why didn’t you do that when you first arrived like everyone else did?  Bravestone and Ruby rescue Ming and the head to where the Jewel is kept, only to find it isn’t there. In fact, Ivan is wearing it around his neck.

He had summoned the brothers Kebabik here as it was intention to marry their sister. Before their ruse could become immediately undone, Ruby shows up, pretending to be said sister to get close, but the ruse is undone as we find that the Brothers Kebabik had been delayed. Fortunately, Mouse was carrying a radio in his dimensionally transcendental satchel and it’s time for Ruby to kick some ass.

Bravestone arrives to assist but Ivan, as I mentioned earlier, can trade blows, but he retreats on seeing the Jumanji berry. He heads after Ivan as Ruby gets some nun-chucks and starts showing her skills. Ivan escapes by airship but Bravestone anchors it with a rope and begins climbing its way aboard, as the others catch up, the anchor is pulled out of the ground and destroys one of the engines.

Bravestone and Ivan fight again, Bravestone winning having realised that Ivan is weak to the Jumanji berry. Cyclone asks Ming onto his back, revealing that he has wings and can fly. Bravestone attains the jewel and passes it to Ming, as for this jewel to work, it needs to be shown to the sun, Cyclone gets it high enough and they all shout out its name, ending the game.

Nigel arrives to send them all home but Milo as Cyclone decides he wants to stay. Until the next set of players comes and his return blows up the space-time continuum for the third time. Everyone else is sent home and all is well. Eddie offers his services to the new owner of the restaurant, who’s having staffing issues. Spencer’s out of his funk and back with Martha again. Fridge has been traumatised and can’t stand the idea of eating cake and Bethany is… there too.

And the payoff the broken boiler bit, the heating engineer takes a look at the game and the next thing we see, an army of ostriches races down the street in the real world. Wait, what?

So that was Jumanji 2, is it as good as the first, or second as Welcome to the Jungle was? Well, mostly. The setup in the real world is weaker, in my opinion. The cast’s character development had already been fulfilled in the first movie, and only Spencer gets development here, a lot of which feels like a retread. It’s not entirely unbelievable it just leaves a feeling of been there, done that. Milo and Eddie offer a fresh dynamic, though.

The comedy is pretty fun, they keep the body swap jokes fresh by having different people in different bodies, and the actors playing them know this too. The Rock’s Sheldon is a very different beat to The Rock’s Eddie, and the same applies to Awkwifina when she plays those too. Kevin Hart also shows range with his Milo/Fridge performances.

The game itself feels like a video game sequel, taking the core ideas of the first game but expanding the scope and variety, with new weapons, new characters and new locations and once again, the special effects whilst not perfect, don’t have to be to feel video-gamey. And the same argument could be made for any plot-holes that would normally occur from adherence to physics.

Jumanji: The Next Level feels very much like its title would suggest, more of the same but bigger and that’s perfectly fine with me, for now.

Praise Rating: 85%