Director: Jake Kasdan
Distributor: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
Duration: 123 minutes
Jumanji: The Next Level (VOD) – Movie Review
In 2018 we had the chance to take a closer look at the newest Jumanji physical release of the 2017 movie. While many initially thought it would be a reboot, it eventually serviced as a sequel to the original, albeit with a more modern approach. We enjoyed this new tribute to the nearly forgotten original and did not expect it to spawn a sequel a year after. We are now able to enjoy Jumanji: The Next Level, with the original cast in a VOD format, as the physical releases have been postponed for the time being. We were happy to see Dr. Bravestone and the other playable characters again in this movie that actually improved on the foundation of the 2017 film.
We assume the movie plays itself out a year later than the previous one, as everyone, of the initial group of students that got sucked into the game, has now gone off to college/university and or their calling in life. We see Martha (Morgan Turner) enjoy her college life, Fridge (Ser’Darius Blain) working out like a madman, Bethany (Madison Iseman) perform charity work, but Spencer (Alex Wolff) is seemingly the only one who isn’t having a good time. His relationship with Martha is on a break, and even though his friends are meeting up, with him invited, he can’t help but feel like a useless tool.
When he arrives home for the holidays, his grandfather Eddie (Danny DeVito) has claimed Spencer’s room, albeit as bunk buddies. Spencer decides to take a look at the scraps of the destroyed console that dragged them into an otherworldly adventure. When the next day, Milo (Danny Glover) arrives at Spencer’s house, as well as Fridge, Bethany, and Martha, things take a turn for the bizarre. They find out Spencer is back in the game, but an unfortunate turn of events sucks in Fridge and Martha, but also Eddie and Milo into the game, leaving Bethany behind.
As far as the flow of the movie goes, it doesn’t differ too much from Welcome to the Jungle, except that most of the characters already experienced what the Jumanji world is like. It doesn’t take long before the leading characters are once again drawn into the odd videogame console and have to complete a quest to return to the real world. There’s now, of course, the problem of Spencer having gone in first and that Eddie and Milo are struck with disbelief of what is going on.
The cast doesn’t have that many new characters when in the actual Jumanji game-world, but we were amazed by how the actors adapted to their new inner personas. In this movie, Dwayne Johnson has to act like Spencer’s grandfather, and Kevin Hart has to adapt to the slow nature of Milo. Jack Black now has Fridge inside him and so on. The cast manages to entertain throughout the entire movie with their new personas, and we couldn’t help but laugh out loud from time to time. In this movie, they have to adapt even further, but we’ll leave that for you to discover on your own. Outside the game we now see Danny DeVito and Danny Glover form a pair of distanced old friends. We love the new additions, and it shows that the production and casting are being handled with the utmost respect for the series.
As we are currently taking a look at the VOD release, as we did for Bloodshot, we don’t know what special features will be included on the DVD and Blu-ray version of The Next Level. Nonetheless, this movie would certainly do well with a gag reel, some behind the scenes footage, perhaps a bit about why the creators decided to revisit the series and so on. We expect many fun things on the physical version, but we can’t be sure what we’ll actually get.
Conclusion
It’s strange to see a sequel outperforming the original when it comes to story-writing, atmosphere, and overall wittiness, but The Next Level certainly takes things towards that next level. We were thoroughly entertained with the slapstick humor and were also very impressed with the way the cast adapted to their personas in this second film. As the movie hinted towards yet another adventure, we are curious to see what the series has in store for us in the future.
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[…] recently took a look at the VOD version of Jumanji: The Next Level and we simply adored this sequel to the spiritual successor of the original Jumanji. The Next Level […]
[…] audience, with our favorite joke being that a character that is a literal rock looks suspiciously like a certain actor. On the other hand, some of the humor is decidedly low-brow, including an early game joke that sees […]