In 2017, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle became a surprise hit with both critics and audiences. It took the first movie’s concept of board game elements entering our reality and flipped it by bringing our new cast of characters into the (video) game and world of Jumanji itself. The recognizable actors all got to subvert our expectations of them as they played varying levels of personality types against their own physical statures.
Now, the cast returns with some new additions as Spencer (Alex Wolff) mistakenly decides to return to this video game land. His friends know that he won’t make it back out of the game without their help and they jump back in. Though, instead of being the characters they were already used to, the character selection was random. Not only that, but Spencer’s ailing grandfather, Eddie (Danny Devito) and his frenemy, Milo (Danny Glover) are sucked into the game as well. Together, this new group looks to capture the treasure du jour, save their friend, and complete this level.
Instead of traversing the dangerous jungle, this time the explorers attempt to survive the barren desert, snowy mountains and dusty villages. The adventure aspect seems to be more in the periphery in The Next Level. There is a villain with a stolen magical stone, but it’s hardly the focus of the story and is filler because the writers felt a main boss was needed.
Welcome to the Jungle worked, in part, because of the commentary on the arbitrary rules a video game determines (Three lives, skill charts, etc). This movie simply just continues with those rules without adding anything fresh. There could have been far more needed meta-humor by including leveling up, game glitches, and horrible non-playable character voice acting.
The Next Level simply takes what was funny in the previous flick and doubles down on it. While there are plenty of laughs, they only exist in the first hour. The drop in originality is steep. You’ll start the movie with fond familiarity, with a few hearty chuckles, leading to smirks, and ending with only apathy. At over two hours long, it will feel more like playing a game of Risk with your annoying college roommates, than a brisk adventure. By the end, I almost swiped the board.
Jumanji: The Next Level does have its merits. There are several laughs and they’re almost all single-handedly brought by Kevin Hart doing his best impression of Danny Glover. Where Jack Black stole the previous movie, Hart is the MVP here. Dwayne Johnson attempts to pull off Danny Devito and it’s stunningly bad. Though, there’s humor in him just trying to be anything other than The Rock. His voice ranges from New York cab driver to Jewish mother, and that’s when he remembers to use an accent. Awkwafina joins the cast and her impression of Devito works much better. Karen Gillian gets the same personality she did in Welcome to the Jungle. There was little fun about her role until, for a brief moment, she plays another character and you can’t help but wish the filmmakers just stuck with that.
As with the previous movie, The Next Level leans more into the PG-13 range instead of being entirely kid-friendly. It has its fair share of language and some shocking kills.
If you expect slightly less than the previous movie, then Jumanji: The Next Level may be enough to get you to the theater and heed the call of the drums. It’s not a completely lazy sequel, as the cast seems to be having the time of their lives, but there’s little more to the movie than that. This series is going to need a lot more XP if they ever plan to make a worthwhile sequel. C+
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