Review: Jumanji: The Next Level
Jumanji: The Next Level, directed by Jake Kasdan, tells the tale of Spencer (Alex Wolff), Martha (Morgan Turner), Fridge (Ser’Darius Blain), and Bethany (Madison Iseman), a group of former strangers turned friends after an encounter with a cursed video game that took them on a crazy adventure in the virtual world of Jumanji. The gang has moved on to college since then, but Spencer longs to go back to Jumanji and become his video game avatar Dr. Smolder Bravestone (Dwayne Johnson) once again. Spencer enters the game alone this time and it’s up to his friends to take control of their game avatars (Karen Gillian, Kevin Hart, and Jack Black) and save Spencer before it’s too late, this time with the unintentional help of Spencer’s grandfather Eddie (Danny DeVito) and his estranged friend Milo (Danny Glover) who makes things even more complicated and dangerous than before.
This is the sequel to the unexpectedly successful 2017’s Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, a film which I thought was enjoyably dumb. It wasn’t very memorable, but its light-hearted tone and fun action sequences made the previous film an enjoyable watch. This sequel felt pretty much the same as its predecessor, which is not exactly a good thing. The Next Level spices things up a bit by introducing unique scenarios leading up to some clever jokes, but it quickly abandons those clever ideas in favor of more familiar elements.
The film changes things up this time by having the game characters be played by different characters. Instead of Dwayne Johnson and Kevin Hart being played by high school versions of themselves, now they’re being played by Danny DeVito and Danny Glover respectively. Johnson and Hart’s impersonations of their real life players is uncanny, and it leads to some incredibly funny moments between the two. Jack Black and Karen Gillian also get the opportunity to play multiple personalities (though Gillian remains the same as she was in the previous film for most of this one) and they were both pretty fun to watch. Danny DeVito and Danny Glover were both a charm to see as always, Awkwafina was fum to watch, the young cast from the previous film were a lot more tolerable this time around, and a lot of the comedic moments stuck their landing.
The film for the most part changed up the formula which was very much appreciated, however by the time we get to the last act the film quickly yeets out everything that made this film a unique installment in the Jumanji series and delivers a generic, by-the-numbers, rehash of the previous film. Despite the video game characters being controlled by different players this time, the film quickly introduces a convenient plot device to change everyone back to normal so they can kick butt in the most generic way possible. Speaking of convenience, there was a lot of that in this film. The plot was so sloppily stitched together; stuff happens where it seems like a tough situation, but it’s quickly resolved thanks to the plot device of the day.
The video game characters have new strengths and weaknesses that could’ve lead to some interesting developments but instead were nothing more than throw-away gags, the action sequences were more of the same, visually nothing about this film makes it stand out from previous Jumanji films outside of setting, this film had so much opportunities to be a unique sequel, but instead decided to play safe.
Overall this was a fun waste of time, but a waste of time nonetheless. People who REALLY loved the last Jumanji film will probably get a kick out of this one, but as for me there was not much else to talk about here. This was a movie, plain and simple; there was a beginning, middle, and end and stuff happened in them. It had some good ideas but was too scared to commit with them all the way. Check it out if you want but don’t expect anything outside of serviceable.
Final Verdict: 5/10