Jumanji is out in theaters and watching the movie makes you feel as if you are watching someone play a video game. But that is exactly it. The plot is straightforward. Four students are in for detention, and they need to remove staples from old magazines, but instead, they find a video game called Jumanji and plug it in. This bunch includes a high school nerd, a misfit, a hot girl and a football player, but they select the characters which don’t match their identities. For instance, a great looking girl becomes Jack Black, whereas a football player transforms into Kevin Hart. Moreover, a high school nerd becomes muscular Johnson, whereas a misfit is a hot chick.
Jumanji is not so much about the universe where rules are completely different from what we got used to, but it is more about opposite personalities stuck in diverse avatars. Despite that, the characters don’t get immersed in the universe, which feels too fake to be anything more than mildly entertaining.
The new Jumanji brought in some excellent things, two of those include Karen Gillan, who plays Martha, a brilliant but sarcastic kid, who actually hates herself and her companion Jack Black who managed to convince the audience that he was a girl trapped in a body of a man. Hart is a popular football player, and he adds to the fun, but his character makes the least sense. The point was clear. They wanted to switch roles and make nerd strong and powerful and a football player tiny, but the relationship between them doesn’t resolve.
In the end, there is Dwayne Johnson. Even though he is a loveable person, his role was the worst. He managed to capture the essence of the character occasionally, but just like Baywatch, or any other movie Johnson has starred in, it crashes at some point because The Rock can only he The Rock. Every avatar has some upsides and flaws, except for Johnson and it doesn’t take too much time to realize that.
Let’s not get carried away and analyze Jumanji into great details. At the end of the day, it was envisioned as a comedy about magical world and body-swapping. The film is enjoyable and funny and a great choice if you want to relax and laugh!
