Jumanji 2: Future Flop or Not?

I am rarely disappointed, just pleasantly surprised. Some movies are the exception, and Jumanji 2 was one of them.

Maxim Trevelyan
Writer, Squib

Just putting it out there, I was, and still am, a huge fan of original Jumanji movie. The premise was fascinating, if rather daunting for child-me, and it still remains one of my favourite movies to date. Robin Williams was just a cherry on top of a very good movie.

So, I was quite excited when I heard that Jumanji 2 (later renamed Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle) would be making its way to theatres in 2017. As a rule, mostly to avoid spoilers, I never read too much about upcoming movies (or books, video games or TV shows). Therefore, I never have high or low expectations, so I am rarely disappointed, just pleasantly surprised. Some movies are the exception, and Jumanji 2 was one of them. Lately, trailers just ooze spoilers, but I could not help myself and just had to watch them.

To keep it short, the movie is about four teenagers who were tasked with cleaning up the basement of their school, where they find an old cartridge of Jumanji video game. They choose their avatars and then are sucked into the game, where they have to play to the end to get out into the physical world. At first, one might think it is a modern retelling of the first movie, but Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle is set twenty years after the original.

I did not much like the teenager-aspect, because they are pretty cliché. Lanky, 'unattractive' gamer nerd, a jock, a ditzy blonde cheerleader and a bookworm wallflower. When they choose their characters, their avatars are pretty much their opposites, so it will be interesting to see, for example, Jack Black playing a teenage girl. I hope we will spend as much time in the video game as possible. For Doctor who fans, Karen Gillan plays one of the Jumanji avatars, a Lara Croft style adventurer. From the first trailer, we can see that there will be a lot of action, way more than the in the original. I do not know if the Hollywood action packed route the movie will take, will do the justice to the original, but we may just be pleasantly surprised. This is a trailer after all, and the main job of it is to attract as many people as possible to buying tickets.

I am a bit bummed at the fact that we will not see the game invade the real world, but rather the other way around. To be fair, this works better for the modern interpretation. While I will see Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle in cinema sometime after December 20th when it comes out, I just hope that the action will not take away the character and heart we are all hoping for: something we are used to from the 1995 original.