Jumanji – The Next Level
When a guy found himself in The Rock’s body, he had incredible
adventures and was also with a girl in Karen Gillan’s body, how can his
life return to normal, asthma and a depressing job in a drugstore? In
fact, Spencer is depressed, even though he has returned home for
Christmas and is about to see his friends again. His grandfather spurs
him on to do something about his life, telling him that as he gets older
he will only get worse, and so Spencer looks for an injection of
self-confidence in the magical game Jumanji, where things don’t go as he
hoped. To help him, his friends will join him, but the game is broken
and so Spencer’s grandfather and his former partner Milo end up trapped
there.
Film even more than the previous one for the whole family, with the
inclusion of characters in the third age, Jumanji: The Next Level
unfortunately lives up to its title and instead of reinventing itself,
as the previous chapter had done, it offers only another level of the
same game.
Of course, the addition of two actors like Danny DeVito and Danny
Glover is always welcome, it also helps to insert explanations about the
videogame world in which the characters are located, which will be very
useful to those who have not seen the first film, perhaps because it is
still too small . To liven things up there is another idea, that of
bringing the boys in different avatars than the previous “game”, thus
obliging them to adapt to new challenges and to accept new differences.
Like the fact that even someone like Jack Black can have his utility in
an adventure between jungles and deserts.
Threats are new, with other exotic animals such as ostriches and
mandrills, with a set of rope bridges in constant motion, with sand
dunes and snow-capped mountains. Also there is a new villain, Jorgen the
brute, played by the imposing Rory McCann, known for being the Mastiff
in the Iron Throne.
However, these are superficial novelties, in a sequel that proposes
the same recipe as the previous film, where instead the upgrade from
boxed game to video game had been a strong and stimulating idea. We
could have continued on that path, with further developments by Jumanji,
but we preferred to raise the budget and hope that the success of the
first film could be replicated by proposing the same stars more or less
in the same roles.
