VGFlicks: Jumanji: The Next Level (Part 1)

Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3

I realized I had accumulated far too many video game movies to review, and therefore I decided to knock three this year. Even better, they'll share a common theme: “Trapped in a virtual world”. I would have said “game world”, but that’s not entirely accurate for all three; Heck, I don’t know whether “virtual world” really counts for today’s movie, either. Depends how you see it.

Truly an all-star cast. Pictured: Five teenagers, actually.

Of all the franchises to make a resurgence, I think nobody expected Jumanji to return after the 1990s with a new movie, Welcome to the Jungle, in 2017. Before then, all the franchise had was one movie, one TV show, and an unconnected movie with a similar concept. Then, suddenly, we’ve got a new Jumanji game, in which the board game has morphed into a cartridge to entice modern-age kids. Thus, we followed five new characters: Spencer Gilpin, Anthony “Fridge” Johnson, Bethany Walker and Martha Kaply, who got sucked into the video game the first time and became their characters. They even rescued another player, Alex Vreeke, who had been trapped in the game for 21 years. They overcame the game’s challenges and returned to their world, and Alex went back to 1996.

I covered Welcome to the Jungle in January 2019; that same year, on December 13th, the sequel, The Next Level, came out in theaters. Surely, the only way to make a sequel to this would be to either introduce new characters, or teach the previous characters new lessons they haven’t learned yet. Both? Both is good. Also, the next sequel is coming out this December, so I figured I’d do this one on time before I forget again!

The Longing

Beautiful locales, and she's still on her phone? Well, at least
it's to talk plans with her friends...

The movie opens two years after Welcome to the Jungle, to scenes of our main four characters, and how their previous adventures in Jumanji changed them. Former alpha girl Bethany (Madison Iseman) lives for the great outdoors, doing volunteer work in gorgeous areas of the world. Martha (Morgan Turner) and Spencer (Alex Wolff) graduated and are now attending different universities. Fridge (Ser’Darius Blain) is as athletic as ever, as we see him training before replying to the others' offer for a meetup.

We've all have those days. Feels like everything sucks,
and then, it starts raining.

The four make plans to have breakfast together at a diner once they’re all home in New Hampshire. This is all that Spencer is looking forward to, as he’s miserable; he hasn’t adapted to life in New York. He doesn’t like his job at a pharmacy. He broke up with Martha between films, and is envious of her social media presence and envious of how outgoing the formerly shy girl has become. It’s like the world is mocking him, too; on his way to the bus home, it starts raining, his luggage loses its handle… Man, when it rains, it pours.

Look, my dad's like that. Can't stay still. Gotta work. Gotta
do something. During the pandemic, my dad made wooden
clocks. Some people just need to keep themselves busy.
When they are forced to rest, it's the end of the world.

Spencer arrives at his mother’s house only to learn that there’s another guest: His grandfather Eddie (Danny DeVito), who’s recovering from hip surgery and should be resting. But the old man hates doing nothing, so against his better judgment, he’ll get out of the temporary bed set up in Spencer’s bedroom and do little jobs like changing lightbulbs. He shouldn’t. One of Eddie’s old friends, Milo, keeps calling, and the old man refuses to answer. And did I mention that the busted heater won’t be repaired till the next day, and it's freezing? That’s gonna be a fun stay.

That night, before sleep, Spencer gets to hear his grandpa bemoan again how much it sucks to be old. Eddie switches the topic to Spencer’s relationship, and the young man has to explain what happened between him and Martha. He creatively rewords anything involving Jumanji; who would believe such a tall tale? He explains that the two of them were different when they met, and that while the start of their relationship was great, things fell apart when they had to attend different universities; they couldn’t maintain the spark over the distance. Explaining all this makes Spencer realize that he longs for those simpler days.

It's just a tiny bit caved in, I bet it's still functional.

And then, the spark. A crazy idea. A bad idea. Bravestone. Surely, returning to Jumanji, jumping back into the chiseled body of Dwayne Johnson, without warning anybody else beforehand, is the perfect plan. After they destroyed the cursed console with a bowling ball, Spencer went behind his friends’ backs and picked up the pieces, storing them in the basement…

Get-Togethers

Martha, Fridge and Bethany meet at Nora’s on the decided hour. Bethany talks about the humanitarian projects she participated in abroad, and Martha shows that she’s become more extroverted through university life. However, even after they’re served, they realize that Spencer still isn’t with them; worried, they head over to his place.

Eddie Gilpin can throw a mean "Meh".

At the Gilpin household, Eddie is awakened by the doorbell. When he opens the door, his pal Milo Walker (Danny Glover) is standing there. Milo invites himself in, despite Eddie’s frown, and offers to cook up some breakfast. These two used to own a restaurant together; well, up to fifteen years ago, when Milo retired and Eddie, unable to keep the ship afloat on his own, had to sell the restaurant. Now, it’s Nora’s. The elder Gilpin dismisses his ex-business partner’s omelettes out of spite, then asks him to get to the point. If Milo kept calling and even came by, what he has to say must be important.

Personable, friendly, lots of stories to tell... But if he starts
telling them, you better hope you've got nothing planned
for the next hour.

To Eddie’s annoyance, Milo opens by talking about one of their employees, way back, and for a while, without explaining why. If Eddie is the grumpy old man type, Milo is the meandering, chattery old man type who just can’t get quickly to the point. Before an answer is given, the two elders’ meetup is interrupted by Fridge, Martha and Bethany’s arrival. Fridge recognizes the two, as he remembers Eddie and Milo’s restaurant. Meanwhile, the girls start looking around for the fourth member of their quartet.

No don't touch it- Too late.

That’s when both the young adults and the elders hear the drums. The team follows the noise downstairs, where they find Spencer’s coat and smartphone with missed calls and messages unread. Yep – he’s in the game. And although none of them want to go back in there, they know they have to. Gotta save that idiot, he can’t beat the entire game alone. Jumanji isn’t made for self-imposed challenges. Good luck speedrunning that, too.

I don't even want to imagine that sensation.

When Martha touches the controller, it activates the broken console, which takes them. Martha and Fridge are turned into green energy and sucked into the game, with more coming from upstairs. Bethany is left alone.

Back In Action

Oh good, she's gonna have to kill some men again.
I mean, it's her avatar's role.

When Martha regains consciousness, she has landed into the forest swamps of Jumanji, under the traits of Ruby Roundhouse (Karen Gillan), Killer of Men. Which means that she can kill hordes of guys, but only when Big Mountain’s cover of Peter Frampton’s “Baby I Love Your Way” is playing. Xander “Smolder” Bravestone (Dwayne Johnson) and Franklin “Mouse” Finbar (Kevin Hart) have landed, but when she calls out to Spencer, all she gets is a big “WHAT?” in an accent more reminiscent of… Oh no no no no. Yup, that’s Grandpa Eddie in the adventurer archaeologist, and that’s Milo in the diminutive weapons valet. The kicker? They’re soon joined by Professor Sheldon Oberon (Jack Black), who fell from the sky… and the first words he speaks make it obvious that this is Fridge, not Bethany.

"Wat's goin' on heeeeeeeaah?"
Jack Black talking like a Black guy is funny, but Johnson
and Hart have the funn-est roles here.

Okay, gotta admit – English being second language, I tend to watch movies mostly in my primary language, French. We do a mighty fine job at dubbing. But some things are bound to get lost in that art, and this film exemplifies it perfectly. This movie loses a lot if you don’t hear the avatars in Jumanji speaking directly with the inflections, tics and mannerisms that their players have. I don’t know if the actors of the players were on set to direct those portraying their avatars and coaching them through the performance, like Johnson taking cues from DeVito’s accent. Jack Black talks more like Ser’Darius Blain does as Fridge – but that's no surprise; Black already knocked it out of the park in Welcome to the Jungle, portraying a teenage girl.

They haven't been this limber since the previous century!

You know how, in a lot of cartoons, there’s the “body swap” episode? The Freaky Friday style? Do you have any idea how hard it is to do? You’ve got actors who must portray not the character they appear as, but another, using their own voice, adopting the other actor AND character’s speech patterns? Roles like these are challenges and playgrounds. It’s so great. And it takes massive talent to pull it off. Props to both Johnson and Hart, they sound so different from usual. Special mention to Hart’s grovellier voice for the portrayal, he sounds deeper and like an old man.

Martha and Fridge try to explain that they’re in a video game that they must play to find Spencer and leave, but it’s just too much for the old men to understand. Besides, they’re too busy testing the joints and hips of these younger bodies to really care.

Dude. Uh, sir. There's a nasty hippo back there.

Milo notices a hippo in the waters and approaches, but is saved just in time by Martha when the large mammal attacks. Milo is shocked, but moreso that he can now recite several facts about the species, which he knew nothing about before getting here. The more experienced players try to explain that it’s his skill in the game, and they end up trying to explain, again, about the game. And how they’ll need to be very careful. That’s when Fridge, in Prof. Oberon, gets killed by an anaconda from above. And then, he respawns, falling from the sky, as usual.

This bit is even funnier now.

The Desert of Death, or Something

This entire plane smells like a flying trap.

A plane flies overhead. They run to it to see Nigel Billingsley, the NPC that greeted them the first time, telling them to climb aboard. Once more, the elderly have to be told to do things, because they don’t catch on. During the flight, the NPC with limited dialogue introduces the player characters, then has Eddie-as-Bravestone read a letter that appeared in his hand.

This new villain looks like Alan Parrish from Jumanji, the
1995 original, when he just came out of the game after a
20-year stay in the damn thing. Except if he also became
a warlord.

The letter explains the new story; this isn’t the same adventure. This time, the heroes must retrieve a different stone: The Falcon Jewel, which allows the growth and flourishing of plant life across the island as long as it is within view of the sun. However, a warlord known as Jurgen the Brutal (Rory McCann) invaded the village where the Jewel was kept, stole it, and shoved it in the darkness of a reinforced safe, creating a drought. Hence, it is up to Xander Bravestone and his team to defeat Jurgen, retrieve the Jewel, and reveal it to the sun. But this will be an emotional journey, as Jurgen is the one who killed Bravestone’s mom and dad (the latter of whom is just Dwayne Johnson in a bad wig and mustache, God damn that’s funny). Nigel gives the team a map, mentions something about following a flame to a desert fruit, then drops them in the desert. Parachutes? Nah!

Oh, he's about to die. Ostrich used Peck!
It was super effective on The Rock!
Which confirms that he's actually Fighting-type.

The players landed by a graveyard of dune buggies. Eddie admires his current body in window reflections, while Fridge and Martha try to make sense of Jumanji changing its world, wondering if that was caused by its broken state. An ostrich appears in the distance and runs towards them, with Milo digging into Finbar’s zoology skill to explain everything about those birds. But! He starts with all the extraneous trivia one would NOT need to survive. Eddie goes to bother the running avian, and right as Milo says that these things attack when threatened, the ostrich pecks Bravestone and obliterates him, costing Eddie his first life. All because Milo took too long to get to the goddamn point.

They aaaaalmost bicker more like an old married couple than
like two old friends who've known each other for too long.

Martha takes advantage of Eddie’s respawn to explain about the video game lives tattoos on their wrists, and that if any of them loses all three, they’re dead, for real. An entire herd has appeared over the dunes, so the players rush to find working buggies and drive away from the chasing birds. Eddie rescues Milo from an ostrich, which causes weapons valet to drop tons of items from his seemingly bottomless backpack. This thing has more space than a bag of holding! Martha and Fridge crash, but they’re rescued by Eddie and Milo in their buggy. The four end up escaping the herd by jumping across a large canyon, barely making it to the other side.

Actually, I should say they get thrown out of it.
They make it to the other side, the buggy doesn't.

Too bad the Linguistics skills doesn't help with his
general speed getting to the point!

Eddie is impressed at his own heroism. With this first “level” cleared, Martha figures it’s a good time to check the characters’ profiles. Some changes: Bravestone, formerly without a weakness, now has “Switchblade” listed. Ruby Roundhouse can use nunchucks now. Mouse gains linguistics, on top of zoology and his weapons valet skill. And Dr. Oberon gets… Geometry, and a bunch of desert-related weaknesses. Maybe they should move on to the next area, huh?

Meanwhile, Bethany, who has stayed behind in the real world, sees only one solution to help her friends: Ask Alex, the guy they met on their previous Jumanji adventure and who had stayed trapped in the game for 21 years.

Okay, that’s enough for today. Let’s continue in Part 2.