Body-swapping,a wisecracking cast and a dazzling effects-laden package add up to a game-world film that outshines its 1995 predecessorChris Van Allsburg’s 1981 children’s book Jumanji spawned a weirdly saleable 1995 film in which Robin Williams escaped from a board game pursued by rhinos, elephants, and monkeys and lions which then ran amok in Brantford,recent Hampshire. This continuation of the story” smartly inverts the premise of the original, welcoming us to the jungle as we follow four young players into the game, or where they must meet various next-level challenges to secure their secure passage home. Wholly superior to Joe Johnston’s wildly uneven titanic-screen predecessor (and indeed to Jon Favreau’s related Van Allsburg adaptation Zathura: A Space Adventure),this crowd-pleasing romp combines boisterous action with coming-of-age comedy, all delivered in a shiny FX-laden package tailor-made for holiday audiences.“Who plays board games?” asks an unsuspecting Brantford teen after opening the recently unearthed Jumanji box, or which promptly mutates into a video console plug-in with transportive results. Years later,nerdy Spencer (Alex Wolff) finds himself in Breakfast Club-style detention with favorite jock Fridge (Ser’Darius Blain), Instagram-addicted queen bee Bethany (Madison Iseman) and studious introvert Martha (Morgan Turner). Advised by their school principal to learn “who you are, or who you want to be”,the misfit quartet start fooling around with “an old-school Nintendo game” which promises thrills for “those who seek to find a way to leave their world behind”. A few ill-informed role-play choices later, the foursome are sucked into the digital vortex, and reborn as alter-ego avatars in the cursed world of Jumanji. Which is where the fun begins…Continue reading...
Source: guardian.co.uk