JUMANJI: WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE (2017) MOVIE NEWS & REVIEW

jumanji: welcome to the jungle (2017) movie

Genre              |   Fantasy Adventure

Classification   |   PG

Running time   |   119 minutes

Released         |   26 December 2017

cast

Dwayne Johnson as Bravestone
Jack Black as Oberon
Kevin Hart as Finbar
Karen Gillan as Ruby

director

Jake Kasdan

writer

Chris McKenna ... (screenplay)
Jeff Pinkner ... (screenplay)
Scott Rosenberg ... (screenplay)
Erik Sommers ... (screenplay)
Chris Van Allsburg ... (book)

cinematographer

​Gyula Pados

music

Henry Jackman

film editor

Steve Edwards
Mark Helfrich

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box office result

Worldwide             $​887,264,825  

Australia                 $​36,927,804

North America       $369,678,565

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the best dialogue

Professor Shelly Oberon: Oh my God, this is so cool! Martha, come look at my penis!
Ruby Roundhouse: No, thanks!

Martha: [sarcasm] Are you gonna help, or are you too pretty?
Bethany: [serious] I'm too pretty.

Moose Finbar: Get me the hell out of here!

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JUMANJI: WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE (2017) MOVIE IMAGES

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Posters

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JUMANJI: WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE (2017) STORY SYNOPSIS

​In the brand new adventure Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, the tables are turned as four teenagers in detention are sucked into the world of Jumanji.  When they discover an old video game console with a game they’ve never heard of, they are immediately thrust into the game’s jungle setting, into the bodies of their avatars, played by Dwayne Johnson, Jack Black, Kevin Hart, and Karen Gillan.  What they discover is that you don’t just play Jumanji –Jumanji plays you.  They’ll have to go on the most dangerous adventure of their lives, or they’ll be stuck in the game forever…

JUMANJI: WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE (2017) MOVIE REVIEW

Reviewed by Mark Geraghty   |   Review date 24 December 2017
​Pop Movee Rating ⭐⭐

​If you’re an avid computer gamer, you know that choosing a winning title can be a bit of a lottery. Sometimes you buy yourself the latest from EB Games, hoping your choice will provide a genuine challenge for your gaming expertise. Nine times out of ten, it all works out for the best and your choice warrants the coin you’ve dropped on whatever it is that’s taken your fancy… Other times, things don’t go so well and the thing you thought was going to be awesome turns out to be, without exception to any part of it, just plain mediocre. Not bad. Not good. Just plain and simple mediocre. JUMANJI: WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE is the cinematic equivalent of the latter… Despite an established mythology, courtesy of the 1995 film and Chris Van Allsburg’s original novel, this new adventure is determined to do its own thing, in its own way, without any genuine attention to detail or context to the original. The result is this new, albeit belated, entry into the JUMANJI canon misses more times than it hits. Unlike the titular jungle island that is the setting for the film, not even the triptych star power of Dwayne Johnson, Jack Black and Kevin Hart can rescue the film from a pedestrian story, uneven editing and viewer’s sentimental fondness for the late, great talents of Robin Williams.

Those familiar with POP MOVEE reviews know that a lot time is spent examining story and how, with lesser rated movies, this fundamental element determines the overall impact a film can have on its viewer. WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE credits two writing teams; Chris McKenna & Erik Sommers AND Scott Rosenberg & Jeff Pinker. All four of the writers have pretty solid credentials, both in movie and television. McKenna & Sommers co-wrote SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING; which wasn’t a bad story, refreshing the Spider-Man franchise and paving the way for the Webslinger to ease his way into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Unfortunately, their JUMANJI effort is not in the same league. Given McKenna also receives a “Story by” credit, not all of the responsibility sits with him and Sommers. There’s probably a version of WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE that is much truer in spirit to the 1995 movie and might have ensured further adventures in the JUMANJI universe... Scott Rosenberg & Jeff Pinker received the film’s second writing credit, which means they were the last writers to work on the film. Given their close association with Sony Pictures, the film’s financial backer, there’s a definite sense that WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE was high-profile project that had a lot riding on it for the studio and their involvement was studio-mandated. Films, such as JUMANJI: WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE, are developed with a franchise in mind and studios will do whatever they need to for a hit movie.

While it’s easy to fire a shot across the bow of both sets of writing teams and attribute the film’s shortcomings to a poor story or script, WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE feels like a movie where much of what has ended up on the screen was a compromise to satisfy the competing egos of the assembled talent. WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE is the first big-budget movie for Director Jake Kasdan, whose main work has been writing, directing & producing small-screen quirky comedy shows. Despite a life lived in show business (his Father is Lucasfilm go-to writer Lawrence Kasdan), nothing could have prepared him for the combination of Johnson, Black and Hart. On their own they represent a challenge, but together, Kasdan would have been confronted with the challenge of just exactly who to point the camera at for any given scene. As always, Johnson dominates physically, but his character spends far too much time pontificating on how his Jumanji avatar isn’t who he is back in the real world. Jack Black has the most fun as his character is the avatar for Bethany (Madison Iseman), a 17 year old “Princess” who freaks out at the prospect of being trapped in Black’s character’s body. Kevin Hart is the avatar of Fridge (Ser’Darius Blain), a mountain of a kid, whose dream is to go to College on a Football scholarship. Given Hart is physically the opposite, the script tries to milk the physical comedy from the juxtaposition, but the great majority of the gags fall flat. Karen Gillan does her best in an effort to give her scenes some energy while Rhys Darby, as the “Game Narrator” Nigel, pops in and out of the story in a role that features the New Zealand funnyman in something that feels like an expanded cameo. Nick Jonas, as Alex, is the only real person trapped in Jumanji and he’s the only actor whose performance actually resonates and feels genuine.

There’s a huge clue to the challenges Jake Kasdan had with crafting what he shot into something that could be deemed commercially satisfactory. WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE is credited with two very different types of Editors. Steve Edwards has worked with Kasdan previously, editing both movies and television shows for Kasdan. The character scenes appear to have been put together by Edwards. The other Film Editor is Mark Helfrich. His credits include RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD PART II, PREDATOR, THE LAST BOY SCOUT, RUSH HOUR, X-MEN: THE LAST STAND and Dwayne Johnson’s 2014 HERCULES. An Editor with this much experience in cutting together big-budget Action movies doesn’t seem like a natural fit to work with Kasdan, whose experience is about finding the comedy between the cracks and making it the main focus. Helfrich’s involvement in WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE feels very much like Sony Pictures attempting to use what coverage Kasdan had to stitch together a film that had much broader appeal than its Director intended. The film certainly lacks a natural rhythm and it feels like every last inch of material is being used to deliver something that approximates what viewers might be looking for in a light, family-oriented feature film. The movie feels likes it’s a Comedy that wants to be an Action film and ends up as neither. Kasdan’s TV comedy background is evident in some parts of the film, but, for the most part, JUMANJI: WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE is a below-par, by-the-numbers outing designed to appeal to the broadest possible audience that fails to fire as either an Adventure or a Comedy. Given the collective talent, that’s a shame. Perhaps, if the starting point had been TROPIC THUNDER for families, WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE may have been something special!

JUMANJI: WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE MOVIE (2017) USEFUL LINKS

​Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (2017) - IMDb
​Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle - Wikipedia
Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (2017) - Rotten Tomatoes 

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