Jumanji: How to Bring an Old Movie (or Show) into the Modern Era Correctly · 2:13am Dec 22nd, 2017
While my movie reviews aren't really my thing, I feel I really need to do this because...
I hate the new Star Wars movie.
Really hate it with an undying passion that has only grown since my last blog post since I had a chance to really think about the thing. Hate it to the point where I can't even call it watchable anymore.
Now, onto Jumanji, the movie that did what new Star Wars was supposed to do right.
But real quick...
ONE MINOR SPOILER
THERE IS ONE MINOR SPOILER AHEAD
Bit I will be giving away the ending to the cartoon series, you have been warned.
First off a little bit of a backstory here. The original Jumanji sucked. Even when it first came out, it sucked. How badly did it suck? Well. it managed to make Robin fucking Williams, not funny. That's how much it sucked as it told a stupid story about bored kids who played this board game that brought animals and a murderous hinter named Van Pelt into the real world.
Jump ahead two years, and a cartoon series called Jumaji comes out, placed somewhere in this early Saturday morning time slot before anything else comes on, so kids don't really have a lot of options. But the thing is...it's actually a fairly decent series. In it two kids find this board game that pull them into a jungle world whenever they play it, with the way out being a clue that the game gives them every time they roll the dice. They solve the clue, they go home. And the reason they go back is a man named Allen Perish played the game once 20 years ago, but didn't bother reading his clue as is stuck in the game. So the sister/brother duo of Peter and Julie keep going back to keep him company and eventually help him rediscover his clue and escape Jumanji at the series finale.
The new movie takes its ques from the cartoon. On top of which, they upgrade the characters to make them capable of great action and some very funny scenes, like Jack Black teaching a girl how to be sexy and pick up guys because they need to distract some guards. It takes the main idea of Jumanji, quite literally modernizes it, and improves on the thing at almost every level. It even takes the character of Van Pelt, a basically comedic character from the movie who was made semi-threatening in the cartoon, and turns him into a villain they ended up underutilizing in the movie because his was such a badass.
Probably the best thing about the movie is that none of the characters have to step on someone else to look good. Everyone plays their part perfectly and in a smart way that doesn't leave you going "Wait, if the good guys had just done this, then we wouldn't of needed a 30 min space Monte Carlo scene". Even the guy who whines for most of the movie because he ended up with a physically weak character becomes cool once he figures out how to use his strengths (zoology bitch!).
I definitely recommend this movie.
I plan to watch it with my family. It should be fun.
The trailer showed some promise, however, The Rock and Jack Black have a sort of history with hit and miss movies for me.
I'll probably end up waiting for it to show up on TV/Streaming service though.
Oh, from my understanding Jack Black is just the avatar of a girl.
Would have been cool if one of the guys ended up with a female avatar and 'Jack' had to teach the guy to act sexy as a girl. That would almost be Shakespearean.
It sounds good, but I probably hate Jack Black and the Rock as much as you hate the new Star Wars.
I've not been a big fan of The Rock or Jack Black in movies for a few years. Despite that I'm still fond of them both, and I have heard some positive stuff...So I guess I'll watch this, I dunno if I'll bother going to the cinema for it though.