Jumanji: The Next Level

So this weekend, the fam (all three of us with Randie back home from college for the weekend) ventured forth from the Fortress of Ineptitude to go see Jumanji: The Next Level. 

Picking up a year after the Welcome to the Jungle, the new film finds that Spencer, Fridge, Martha, and Bethany have gone their separate ways but make plans to meet up back home in Brantford, NH. 

Except Spencer is not in a great place. Going to college in New York City with a crappy part time job stocking shelves in a drug store, Spencer doesn't seem to be living his best life. Back home, feeling lost and melancholy, Spencer digs out the pieces of the Jumanji game to go back into the game. 

The next day, Fridge, Martha, and Bethany become concerned when Spencer fails to show up. Heading to his house, they meet Spencer's grandfather Eddie, who's staying at the house while recovering from hip surgery, and his former friend Milo Walker. Spencer's friends discover that he kept the game and has gone back into it. Martha, Fridge and Bethany resolve to follow Spencer into Jumanji to save him.  But the fame cartridge is malfunctioning and things don't work out as expected. 

While Martha winds up in her Ruby Roundhouse avatar as before (Karen Gillan, smoking hot, natch!), Fridge winds up in Professor Oberon. Meanwhile, the game has sucked in Eddie into Bravestone and Milo into Mouse. 

Martha as Ruby spends a lot of time trying to explain to Eddie and Milo what happened. Then she has to explain it again.  And then some more. 

Eddie and Milo are really slow to pick on what the hell is going on.  Dwayne Johnson contorts his face in a perpetually confused state and pronounces Jumanji as "Joo MAN Gee!"  Meanwhile, Kevin Hart affects a slow drawl as Milo takes forever to get to a point.  

Hilarity ensues. 

And also action and adventure. There is a quest to be completed to get everyone out of the game save and sound before all their avatar lives are used up and they die in the game for real against all manner of deadly threats.  

For example, a flock of very angry and quite deadly ostriches.  A single ostrich kills Bravestone. 

Yes, this is a movie where Dwayne Johnson is defeated by an ostrich. 

There are a lot of laughs in this movie and the action set pieces are pretty cool. I will say The Next Level lacks the total emotional resonance of the previous film, missing that cohesive shared experience of our high schoolers learning there is more to life than their shallow high school concerns by confronting death on a continual basis.  

There is the animosity between Eddie and Milo but it takes too long to get to the heart of what that's about. In Jumanji, they rediscover their friendship even if it's nearly too late. 

Cool shout out to the original Jumanji. Eddie and Milo's old restaraunt is now called Nora's. At the end of the movie, Eddie returns to the diner and has a chat with the current owner played by Bebe Neuwirth. Neuwirth was Nora Shepherd, Judy and Peter's aunt, in the original Jumanji movie.  

Another call back to the original movie (and a possible sequel set up maybe) occurs in the  mid-credits scene. While this and the previous movie has centered the action on the world of Jumanji, the first movie focused the action on what happens when the that world spills out into our world.  

While dining out at Nora's, Spencer, Fridge, Martha, and Bethany have resolved to never, ever go back into the game again. But the game may be coming out towards them as a rampaging horde of ostriches run past on the street outside.  

Well, that can't be good.