Spencer (Alex Wolfe) studies and works in New York. His relationship with his girlfriend Martha (Morgan Turner) is about to break. They have taken a break for now, Spencer is losing self-confidence, and it is clear that love at a distance usually passes quickly.
At Christmas, Spencer returns to his childhood town to meet up with the other three kids, Bethany (Madison Iceman), Fridge (Ser’Darius Blaine), and Martha, with whom he had some adventures in the Jumanji video game some time ago.
In his house, Spencer discovers Eddie’s grandfather (Danny DeVito): the old man has recently had hip surgery, he walks with great difficulty, but Eddie categorically refuses any help and fills the entire space with himself.
Spencer is in a complete depression and, in order to somehow cope with this, he decides to go back to the game “Jumanji”, where his character was Dr. Smolder Bravestone (Dwayne Johnson) – a strong and confident archaeologist who is able to lead and motivate the whole team.
However, Spencer did not take into account that the toy is partially broken, so this time she does not allow her to choose a character, so he does not know in whose body the guy will end up. As a result, Spencer became Ming Fleetwood (Akwafina) – a fighting Asian with hacking skills.
Meanwhile, Spencer’s friends find out that their friend is back in Jumanji and decide to dive in there to rescue Spencer. However, it turns out that along with them, Eddie’s grandfather and his sworn friend, Milo’s former business partner (Danny Glover), with whom Eddie quarreled many years ago, appeared in the game avatars because Milo sold their restaurant.
At the same time, Eddie got into the body of Smolder Bravestone, Milo ended up in the body of Franklin Finbar (Kevin Hart), a zoologist, the athlete Fridge, to his indignation, got into the body of a plump cartographer Sheldon Oberon (Jack Black), and Martha became Ruby Roundhouse (Karen Gillan) – this is a cool girl, a master of various martial arts.
Now, in order to get out of the game, they need to take away the Falconheart stone from the terrible villain Jorgen the Cruel (Rory McCann).
***
I got it funny. The first film “Jumanji” with Robin Williams, God rest him, I, of course, watched – twenty-five years ago. I didn’t even know that in 2017 he released the sequel “Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle” with Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart and Jack Black, I somehow missed it. Therefore, when I stumbled upon the film “Jumanji: The Next Level”, I sincerely considered it a sequel and, starting to watch, I was slightly perplexed, because this is clearly a continuation of some story, but not the first “Jumanji” at all. Well, continuation and continuation, I thought, I’ll look anyway, it’s business.
It all started out pretty boring. Sad loser Spencer, who – ah! – he is not confident in himself and is going through a breakup, he didn’t evoke sympathy with Bublik, because we really don’t care about the lantern of his problem. However, Eddie’s chic grandfather appeared in the film and everything became much more fun.
And then the heroes moved into their avatars and a funny adventure fun started: without any special fuss, but fun and effective.
Slightly senile grandfather Eddie in the body of a big man Smolder – it was really funny, and Dwayne Johnson in this role had a lot of fun. He is generally a good comedic actor, I was convinced of this many times. Interestingly, Johnson started out as the “new Schwarzenegger” and Arnie himself in the “Treasure of the Amazon” even symbolically passed the baton to him, but it quickly became clear that when Johnson quite seriously pretends to be a hero, then it all looks somehow boring, so that he will not become a new Schwartz. But he himself understood this, after which he played several frankly comedic roles (in “Be cool” he was just very good), and his action heroes became self-ironic and funny, which undoubtedly benefited them.
Well, here Johnson is just the decoration of the film: he portrays grandfather in Bravestone’s body perfectly (and how grandfather blooms when he discovers that a big man can fly ten meters away from one of his blows), and then, when the avatars again happen metamorphosis, he also looks good, although not so much fun.
About metamorphosis. In the previous film, this was not the case, but here the creators of the picture not only instilled characters in unusual avatars, but also changed their places again, so that the actors, in fact, had to portray different characters, which looked pretty fresh.
Jack Black, who is good in any role always and everywhere, famously portrayed an athlete in the body of a clumsy fat man, and then he had to portray a girl in the same body, and he did an excellent job with this difficult task.
I usually have a hard time with Kevin Hart, but here at least he didn’t annoy: the nerdy zoologist was moderately funny, and the screenwriters did not allow Hart to give out a portion of his usual revelations about the peculiarities of his body, and this influenced the picture in the most life-giving way.
Karen Gillan was strong-willed and determined, but she didn’t have to play two characters (well, spoiler, except for just a couple of minutes). But Aquafina – even as it was necessary, and she did it well.
Some critics reproached the director for the line of two old men – Eddie and Milo, who sorted out the relationship with each other about a quarrel of God knows how long ago. And this line did not seem superfluous to me, and even vice versa – it all looked quite touching, despite Kevin Hart.
From the point of view of special effects, the picture did not impress with anything so special, but the race with ostriches in the desert was done quite cheerfully, and jumping on rope ladders to race with monkeys looked tolerable, although the computer graphics there were, let’s say, not five points.
In general, looked with pleasure. I didn’t expect anything special from this film, but as a fun attraction that allows you to relax and unwind, it makes perfect sense. Funny and interesting characters, good jokes, cheerful action, beautiful views – I liked it even more than I expected.
Jumanji: The Next Level movie meaning
Director: Jake Kasdan Cast: Dwayne Johnson, Jack Black, Kevin Hart, Karen Gillan, Nick Jonas, Awkwafina, Reese Darby, Danny DeVito, Danny Glover, Morgan Turner, Rory McCann, Ser’Darius Blaine
Budget: $125M, Global gross: $791M
Action adventure, USA, 2019, 123 min.