Thursday 21 December 2017

Review: Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle

Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (2017) - Jake Kasdan

     Whoooooo! Sequel tiiiiiime! Let's do itttttttttttt! Jumanji, you guys! Remember that kind of weird, not great showcase of CGI that came out something like 20 years ago, that was about a board game?! Robin Williams was in it, cuz he was a guy who was alive?! Everyone! Remember?! THERE WERE MONKEYS AND SHIT! THEY STOLE A COP CAR!
       Is this what cocaine-fueled movie executives at Sony thought the average movie-goer was thinking? Why did this movie get the blatant sequel grab (Oh yeah, money) even get made (MONEY)? Because, and trust me on this, the original idea of Jumanji was indeed properly mined before 2017. It was mined, emptied, turned upside down and patted to get all the nooks and crannies out. But hoo boy! That won't stop snow-nosed movie fucks from cramming Dwayne Johnson in it and hoping that alone will be enough to make a decent flick!
        It wasn't! It was a bad movie!
        The new Jumanji flick, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, is not a well-made or decent movie, its biggest issue being that it never quite justifies its reasons for existing. It's banal to the point of eye-rolling. Firstly, they just figured that making it a video game and constantly referencing Instagram would make it 2017 saavy, but it only succeeds in a weird, "this is what movie execs seem to think" kind of way. It's like watching your parents write a high school script. Which, yuck.
       Jumanji (in the funniest/stupidest scene in the movie), which is a board game that makes crazy jungle shit go down (in case you needed a refresher, and trust me, you don't), is tired of being JUST a board game, so it hornily stares down a video game system (which even by 1996 standards is totally unrealistic and chronologically erroneous) and...eats it? Becomes it? Morphs into it using only the power of green lights? Who the fuck knows, it becomes a video game to entrap four new high schoolers into its zany hijink world instead of morphing the real world into a jungle-scape like the first one. That's the plot. There. You fuckers just made me reiterate the plot of Jumanji 2. Are you happy? I'm not. I've never been happy. 
      The nerd is nerdy! The girl nerd is girl nerdy! The bitchy girl is bitchy and the jock is jocky! Have you ever gone to high school for approximately four minutes? Congrats, you are emotionally equipped to write this film! But the personalities of these students isn't paramount, as after they quickly establish who is cool and who isn't (Selfies! Because 2017!) the kids are kicked the fuck out the scene to make way for the big name actors involved. Sooooo, okay. I will be kind for a second and state that Dwayne Johnson and Karen Gillan actually do a halfway decent job of imbuing their performances with the anxieties that plague their teenage, uncool selves. They are by far the best part of the movie, and let's face it, the Rock is always, 100% a welcome addition to any major motion experience. But the rest of this flick?
       Fridge, the jocky football player and tall black high schooler, sure didn't seem like he was just a bigger Kevin Hart before he was zapped into the game, but goddamnit all to fuck if that's not exactly how Kevin Hart plays it. It could be goddamn Dame Judi Dench morphing into Kevin Hart's body and that shitty comedian would have no recourse other than screaming loudly and shrilly at everything that happens. He's not a high schooler, he's a goddamn stunt. (Legit, I hate Kevin Hart, he is so annoying and takes every possible funny thing he has to say and kills it by SAYING IT SO LOUDLY). And then there's Jack Black, who is the hot Instagram girl transformed into his schlubby body. Jack Black does what he can, but it's tough to make a positive lasting impression when everything you say boils down to a quasi-creepy-teenage-gay joke and dick jokes. So many dicks jokes. A glut of dick jokes, you guys. Guys. Guys? There are so many dick jokes. Also, not that this REALLY matters, but the second the popular girl zaps into the video game she essentially changes her entire personality to better fit the Jack Black character. Oh wait, character growth IS really important? Well fuck, this movie must be pretty dumb, then.
        Also, there are so many dumb dick jokes. So. Many. Dumb. Dick Jokes.
       I get the overall message the movie has to say: Be the person you want to be. Sure, that's a nice thought, but it doesn't matter much when every problem is solved in a thirty second heart-to-heart about believing in yourself. "I can't do it." "Yes you can." "Okay." There, I just saved you sixteen dollars.  
       But honestly, none of these critiques would matter much if they had made an exciting or funny movie. Spoiler alert, they didn't! The comedy ins't funny and the action isn't exciting. What the fuck am I doing there? It looks like a CGI shit fest, the 8th best reviewed movie from the summer of 2002. The computer graphics for every animal looks just about as good as it did in 1996, but back then it was exciting, or quaint, or both, I'm not sure. The movie is ugly and its green screen chic robs all the action of any agency. If I can clearly imagine the dudes making the movie just drawing our characters out of danger, then why should I give a shit? The movie is a video game without any video game excitement. It just leaves a faint fart smell in the theatre. 
       I didn't like this movie. I wasn't expecting The goddamn Shape of Water (Ho my god I love that movie so much you guys I can't stop listening to the soundtrack by Alexander Desplat, that movie is so great and exciting and whimsical and lovely and Jesus can I just review that movie again?), but I promise it's not too much to expect a family holiday-timed action/comedy to be so devoid of joy. But nope. Just throw some CGI hippos and some Jack Black dick jokes and that's whatcha got: Jumanji: Welcome to the Shitty Jungle. 

Grade: 2 out of 5 shitty movies.

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