"Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle" is a pleasant surprise. Although the Rock flexes his biceps and exudes charisma, Kevin Hart does the kind of comedy he's good at and Karen Gillan is solid as the fighter, the show stealer is Jack Black, whose gender-confused wilderness explorer is not only consistently funny but proves he really can act. Four high school students, geek Spencer Gilpin (Alex Wolff), football player Fridge Johnson (Ser'Darius Blain), popular Bethany Walker (Madison Iseman) and mousey Martha Haply (Morgan Turner), are serving detention by cleaning out the basement at their school. There, they find the Jumanji video game, where they assume the avatars they have chosen. Spencer becomes muscle-bound archeologist Smolder Bravestone (Dwayne Johnson) and Fridge loses two feet of height as Smolder's sidekick 'Moose' Finbar (Kevin Hart). Martha jumps way up on the hotness scale as Ruby Roundhouse (Karen Gillan) and poor Bethany transforms from a svelte, curly blond into a pudgy middle-aged man, Professor Shelly Oberon (Jack Black).
It doesn't take them long to figure out that they're playing Jumanji for real and they have limited lives before its 'game over' and winning requires progressing through increasingly difficult levels, solving riddles and eventually battling the Big Boss, bad-to-the-bone Van Pelt (Bobby Cannavale). Because the characters all start out with three lives, we get to see each of them die at least once, sometimes in amusing ways. And Black's impersonation of a girl is equal parts hilarious and spot-on. He steals every scene he's in. Director Jake Kasdan keeps things moving although the pace suffers in the beginning. "Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle" is a fun way to spend an afternoon.
No comments:
Post a Comment