For most of Canada, January was a cold one! And those winter days are often the best time to duck into cinema to avoid the onslaught of cold winds and snow on one’s face. The warmth of the theatre and the familiarity of comfort food like popcorn and nachos making us feel comfy. Anyone who lives in Toronto knows that this week brought back the cold and snow, so the cinema seemed like a good escape from the dreariness. But the real question is what does one watch in this kind of weather? What is worth the $15 – $20 ticket and appropriate for a midwinters eve?
Our choice was Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle directed by Jake Kasdan. For all you sceptics out there who are convinced that there is no way the movie could live up to the thirteen-year-old original, you’re right! But that does not mean that it was not a good sequel. In fact, this action comedy has now earned $822m worldwide making it Sony’s fifth-biggest global grosser.[1]
We’ve all been in the position where we’ve let out a loud groan of disappointment in hearing that a beloved childhood movie is being given a sequel, because the truth of the matter is that more often than not, it will be a catastrophe. There are very few sequels that can be considered satisfactory, let alone good – Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull comes to mind.
So, what is it that makes a sequel any good? Maybe the answer to this query is in fact the response to another very similar, but perhaps more pertinent, question: Why do we feel the need to have sequels? Very often we find that sequels can just be a money-making scheme, born out of an initial narrative that had potential, but devolved into easy-to-make, easy-to-watch copies with no originality (Fast and Furious franchise, I’m looking at you). While they may be extremely entertaining, they often fall short of the original success.
What made Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle so successful is precisely that it did not try to be the original. It could be argued that since Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle is able to stand-alone from the original Jumanji, it should not count as a sequel in the traditional sense. However, its association with the original is a definite contribution to the success of the film. Over a decade old, Jumanji starred Robin Williams, Bonnie Hunt and a young Kirsten Dunst and Bradley Pierce.
Recognized as being a rather dramatic story, the 1995 original of a magical board game differs greatly from the 2017 release. Perhaps the most obvious difference was that the board game trope was updated to a video-game (that nonetheless maintained a vintage feel to it) that physically sucks in its players and turns them into their chosen avatars. This small change was enough to alter the feeling of the two movies completely.
Though it was quite driven by action and drama, the film maintained a constant level of comedy that alters greatly from the sentimental original. Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle was able to draw parallels to its predecessor (such as the nod to Robin Williams’ character Alan Parrish, the distinctly jarring Jumanji drumbeats, and even the mirrored storyline of a character trapped inside the game discovered many years later by new players) while revitalizing the concept in an entirely new and thoroughly entertaining fashion.
And at the end of the day, if nothing else: sticking The Rock and Kevin Hart together is basically an infallible way of ensuring a good time. As well, shout out to Jack Black who embodied a self-involved millennial teenage girl flawlessly, and Karen Gillan’s hilarious ability to couple teen awkwardness with some seriously kick-ass dance fighting choreography. And to top it all off, Nick Jonas was a surprisingly fun addition!
If you get a chance, this is one movie that we highly recommend seeing!
S & Z
[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/scottmendelson/2018/01/28/greatest-showman-and-jumanji-continue-to-make-box-office-history/#3747a9dc7ea4
