COLUMBIA PICTUES PRESENTS
JUMANJI
The about two hours adventurous movie was about four high school teenagers who were on detention for erring. To punish their offence, their principal put them in a room and asked them to remove all the staples in the old magazine as well as clean up the place. They soon discovered a video game- JUMANJI that caught their attention and left what they were supposed to do to play the game. As soon as they clicked the start button, they all vanished. They found themselves stuck in the game where they were all transformed to the game’s character avatars.
They looked around them and saw that the place they were in was nothing like where they were coming from, it was actually a jungle. They discovered that there was more to the Jumanji game.
It was a game that was different from other games. When playing other games, once the lifelines culminates, the game would be over and you would need to click the replay button to start a new game. But that method does not apply to Jumanji as it was not just meant to be played but survived. In essence, the end of their lifelines means that they are dead also in the real world. They were given just three lifelines in their wrist to fight their way back to real life
The 2017 movie- Jumanji was able to pull the attention of millions of viewers because of the already produced movie of the same title in 1995. So, a lot of viewers were expectant. They were eager to see a new Jumanji. However, would you say this 2017 was a suspenseful adventure movie? I would say no; there was no form of suspense created in the movie.
It is however important to note that the difference between the two movies was that the 1995 Jumanji game was a board game while the 2017 Jumanji game was a video game; which is creativity on the part of the writer.
The writer was able to think of something different from the Jumanji movie produced some decades ago. Also, the 2017 Jumanji movie saw the teenagers transformed into adults, each transforming into the avatar character they picked while the 1995 Jumanji movie was about two kids who found the Jumanji game. They played it but discovered that they just helped set a captured man free after years of being stuck in the game. But they also released a lot of scary things/creatures from the game apart from the man. The game also must be completed to conquer all these creatures/things.
Meanwhile, in the 2017 Jumanji movie, to get their freedom, they must return the emerald eye to a jaguar camel into a mountain top which was stolen by Vant Pelt. That brings me to the issue about Van Pelt (Bobby Cannavale)- the movie hardly focussed on him but the players. I think that was one area the writer of the movie didn’t exploit. They could have given him more appearance making more terrifying and the one to unleash the unexpected, in that way the viewers would be put in suspense as to what he was up to. Van pelt had few scenes and they were basically about his search for the jewel
Also, it was quite difficult to tell the number of days, months, years that had passed by in this movie. The whole film was just to one direction. It was not specified how long the four players stayed in that jungle unlike Alex that was stuck in the game for 20 years. They walked and walked with no other activities like sleeping, eating, bathing etc, except running and fighting from one battle to another. Again, if Alex survived under Alan’s tree house for twenty years with three lifelines on his wrist, how come it looked like the new players that just joined him could have all died in less than a year.
Great acting though- the actors all brought life to the screen
CAST
Dwayne Johnson acted as Dr. Smolder Braveston; Alex Wolff acted as Spencer Gilpin; Madison Iseman acted as Bethany Walker; Jack Black acted as Professor Sheldon “Shelly”; Ser’Darius Blain acted as Anthony “Fridge; Kevin Hart acted as Franklin “Mouse; Morgan Turner acted as Martha Kaply; Karen Gillan acted as Ruby Roundhouse; Mason Guccione acted as Alex Vreeke; Colin Hanks acted as Alex Vreeke (Adult); Nick Jonas acted as Jefferson “Seaplane” McDonough; Marc Evan Jackson acted as Principal Bentley; Sean Buxton acted as Alex’s Father; BOBBY CANNAVALE ACTED AS VAN PELT
HILARIOUS…
WHERE BETHANY WAS TEACHING MARTHA HOW TO FLIRT.
SPENCER AND FRIDGE’S ARGUMENT WHERE HE LATER PUSHED SPENCER
WHEN SPENCER FOUGHT WITH VAN PELT’S MEN
Costume wise
• Just costume- They only wore one outfit all through the chase in the jungle- one in the entire film.
Sound wise
• Terrific!
Just wondering
• Did they ever sleep? Or do any other activity.
• How long were they stuck in the game? It was very easy to tell viewers that Alex was stuck for twenty years. How come we were not told how long the quadruple stayed. It seemed no one checked on them to see if they were truly cleaning up the basement.
• How Alex survived with three life lines for twenty years with the constant battle they faced leaves me aghast
• No blood was spilled even though there were punches, shatterings, fightings. Even when Fridge exploded right beside Spencer, he was still perfectly okay; no injuries. Like seriously, I really wish all real life explosions always worked that way.
Confusing scene(s): Nil
Overall rating for Jumanji
• STRUCTURE: Good Beginning, Good Middle, Good Ending
• SOUND: Great!
• DIALOGUE: Good
• CHARACTERS: Familiar faces and new faces
• SCREEN PLAY: Good
• SHOTS: Bright shots
• LOCATION: Shot in a jungle and showed things/creatures one would naturally see in a jungle
• REMARK: An adventure movie with not so much suspense and just towards one direction. Regardless of the discrepancies recorded, it is one film people certainly need to watch
• RATE: 6/10