Jumanji: The Next Level (12A)***
Dir: Jake Kasdan
With: Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart, Jack Black
Runtime: 123 mins
It’s ironic that the most successful video game movie ever was not in fact based on a video game at all, but on a near-40-year-old book. A surprise mega-hit two Christmases ago, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle brought the structure of a game to a rollicking fantasy romp wherein a group of teenagers were sucked into the land of Jumanji through an old computer console.
The twist was that they inhabited avatars that were nothing like their own physical appearances, so after spending the first film in the body of Dwayne Johnson, Spence (Alex Wolff) has been struggling to adjust to life in his own skin, a theme carried throughout the movie. He deliberately re-enters Jumanji, forcing his friends to go in after him, but the masterstroke here is having the actors inhabit different characters to the ones they played previously.
So instead of Spence once again becoming the muscular hero, it’s his crusty old grandfather (Danny DeVito) who does so. The setup really runs with his confusion over just what is happening, and Johnson has a rare old time impersonating DeVito, as does Hart, now channelling Danny Glover. There are opportunities for several fun switcheroos along the way, which is just as well because the plot doesn’t exactly rattle along.
Action sequences are a variation on a theme where the gang find themselves chased through jungle, desert and mountain by computer generated creatures – some mad monkeys on rope bridges being a highlight – on their quest to recover a sacred jewel to save Jumanji from Rory McCann’s underused bad guy.
Highly gifted comic actors doing their stuff is the draw here, with Karen Gillan more than holding her own, although it perhaps doesn’t quite deliver the same volume of laughs as first time round. The Next Level doesn’t feel like as much of a challenge, nor does it feel so organic in its reason to exist. But it’s slick entertainment for a wide audience, it looks like an expensive adventure film should, and if there ends up being another one for Christmas 2021, no-one can have too many complaints.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here