Review of Gaming-Centred FU – Jumanji: The Next Level

Maybe this shouldn’t be an “FU”, strictly. This should be like one of those Star Trek: Next Generation memes with Patrick Stewart or Jonathan Frakes making some sort of disappointed expression. Regardless, it fits the theme and I don’t like it, so press on.

This is the Far Cry: New Dawn of movies, something which recycles everything from the previous game in terms of plot, characterisation and location, and feels somehow like a much smaller experience than the game it came from. Jumanji: The Next Level pillages gleefully from 2017’s Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, only throwing in a couple of scraps to ensure that it is not a direct carbon copy.

I did not laugh once in this comedy movie. I may have giggled, in an attempt to bring my mood up slightly, but there was no original laughs that hadn’t been done to death by the previous movie. I could tell that the cast of this movie were really trying to get some laughs out of us, and I commend that, but could you have done it in a way that was…unpredictable?

The jokes in this movie drag on for so long, with the most obvious conclusions possible, that we grow impatient almost as though we are waiting for a jumpscare noise instead of a joke payoff. And those that don’t are either recycled from the first movie or stupid as hell with no payoff.

That’s the biggest problem with this movie – nothing feels like it’s changed whatsoever from the previous movie. It feels exactly the same in tone, story beats, and character development, and especially in the jokes. Even the locations feel very samey, with a bit of snow and desert thrown in for variety. It’s basically Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle DLC, but sold at full price a la Fallout 76 when it’s not really worth that.

What this movie does do well is the scenes set in the real world, before they head into JUMANJI. All of the young performers are quite talented, especially Alex Wolff from Hereditary as our lead Spencer, and Danny DeVito briefly wonders in to have a great time as Spencer’s cantankerous grandfather. Danny Glover doesn’t get to do a lot, as he’s there for about 3 minutes before Kevin Hart and a horse impersonate him for the whole movie, but he still works fine. All that stuff in reality is well-set, well-shot and gets the best laughs and development in the film.

But when it gets to the land of Jumanji, nothing feels refreshing, just recycled. While the actors are doing really well to try and get laughs, especially Jack Black and Awkwafina, it just doesn’t work as we feel we have seen this exact thing before. Even the villain, played by the Hound from Game of Thrones (or Michael from Hot Fuzz, depending on what kind of nerd you are), feels like something out of a villain assembly line trying to copy Bobby Cannavale’s baddie from the previous movie. Aside from some clever action scenes, it feels so lazy.

Rory McCann as...some Icelandic-looking warlord, I dunno.

In the end, I can’t really recommend this unless you’ve not seen Welcome to the Jungle, which will result in an enjoyable experience (the movie’s not too heavy on exposition, thankfully). Unfortunately, you probably have seen that movie, and this will just feel like glorified DLC. I’m going to give this movie a 5.5/10.

What did you think of this movie? Leave your answers in the comments.