Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (2017)

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When we saw that Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle was showing near Mommy's office, Anna campaigned quite strongly to watch it before we watched the latest Star Wars movie. So after picking Mommy up from the office, we went to the cinema, bought some nachos, and settled into our seats... bracing ourselves for a very exciting adventure.

The sequel started off pretty much like the previous movie did: an awkward kid got himself into trouble and found himself in contact with the game. But this where the new movie took on its own persona. Instead of sticking with the board game, this movie had the kid take out a video game... after all, kids nowadays appear to be more attached to their phones and multimedia games than to boardgames.

Also, instead of two players, this time, the movie involved four players. They were classmates who were forced to spend some time together in detention. They were sucked into the jungle of Jumanji and they took on the personas of an archaeologist, a zoologist, a cartographer, and a soldier. A fifth player, a seaplane pilot, has been stuck in the game for a long time and has been missing from the real world, to the anguish of his father.They each have complementary strengths; they were needed to work as a team to get out of Jumanji alive. In the end, they were able to finish the game together and the guy who was stuck in the game got back to his life in the real world.

Unlike the first Jumanji, which scared me out of my wits, this sequel didn't have the same scare factor. There were wild animals in the jungle, sure; and there were formidable antagonists. But the main characters didn't look like they were really scared to be in the game. The Rock, Jack Black, and Kevin Hart, Karen Gillan, and Nick Jonas looked like they were having fun in the jungle rather than running for their lives. My heart used to start thumping fast when I heard the drum theme of Jumanji. But in this sequel, it didn't mean anything... just brand recall for the board game.

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