Sony's Wreck-It Ralph. That's not an over-praising of this movie. It's a lot like that movie both in style and story elements, as it pokes fun references to most habits of video games. Like Disney's Wreck-It Ralph, there's lots of great character arcs and sweet moments, genuinely funny scenes, a heartfelt conclusion, and supremely creative fast-paced action. A bit of the story could use work in the last two acts. Some of the epic-feel that the first act presented was a little lost among the humor and formulaic story beats the last two acts kept striving for. There's the awkward romantic sub-plot involving two pairs of the group, a dramatic reveal of one of the introduced characters, a little tangent where a shut-in character is taught to do something brave and out-going, and etc. In comparison to Disney's movie, there's a lot of pretty clever in-jokes about the nature of video games, such as quick-time events, cut-scenes, and NPC's only have a limited range of programmed responses in conversations. What I wish the movie did was go all DAE way, just go nuts with it's premise and tackle video games as a whole. Go insane. Imagine what this movie could've been like if it went into hacking and using physics cheating like the shit you'd see in Garry's Mod servers. Holy lord, I'd pay to see that. But, you know, they got to keep things simple for most audiences, and that's okay. What makes the movie work very well, is it's characters and their interactions with one another. What delighted me was I was able to forget I was watching The Rock and Kevin Hart be themselves. They managed to pull performances that fit right in with their corresponding written characters (The ones outside the video game world). They felt subdued enough that it didn't feel like I was just watching celebrities on-screen acting stupid. Sure, there's stupid and way over-exaggerated jokes, but it works, and it's part of the fun. The whole movie works to certain degrees and that's what surprises me. I expected to just walk out so uninspired and lost on many of what it attempts to do, but I found myself smiling and some-what giggling along with the rest of the crowd, who were howling with laughter.
This is what a blockbuster should be. I'm not saying remake all old properties, but if you must, do something different with it. Give it a reason to exist. Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle overcomes all of it's obstacles, remaking an "unremakable" classic, being branded with infamous Sony pictures, and having just general low expectations among other movies released around the same time. It's not perfect, there's beats I had issues with and there was a lot more that could've been developed, but as is, this Jumanji sequel explodes and roars a breath of relieving fresh air and was a lot of fun, something I don't say about most blockbusters of today. I'm looking at you, every shit Marvel movie released this year. Surprising to find the director of this mostly did adult comedies before this.
Review by filmtoasterVIP 3BlockedParent2020-03-03T00:42:26Z
Sony's Wreck-It Ralph. That's not an over-praising of this movie. It's a lot like that movie both in style and story elements, as it pokes fun references to most habits of video games. Like Disney's Wreck-It Ralph, there's lots of great character arcs and sweet moments, genuinely funny scenes, a heartfelt conclusion, and supremely creative fast-paced action. A bit of the story could use work in the last two acts. Some of the epic-feel that the first act presented was a little lost among the humor and formulaic story beats the last two acts kept striving for. There's the awkward romantic sub-plot involving two pairs of the group, a dramatic reveal of one of the introduced characters, a little tangent where a shut-in character is taught to do something brave and out-going, and etc. In comparison to Disney's movie, there's a lot of pretty clever in-jokes about the nature of video games, such as quick-time events, cut-scenes, and NPC's only have a limited range of programmed responses in conversations. What I wish the movie did was go all DAE way, just go nuts with it's premise and tackle video games as a whole. Go insane. Imagine what this movie could've been like if it went into hacking and using physics cheating like the shit you'd see in Garry's Mod servers. Holy lord, I'd pay to see that. But, you know, they got to keep things simple for most audiences, and that's okay. What makes the movie work very well, is it's characters and their interactions with one another. What delighted me was I was able to forget I was watching The Rock and Kevin Hart be themselves. They managed to pull performances that fit right in with their corresponding written characters (The ones outside the video game world). They felt subdued enough that it didn't feel like I was just watching celebrities on-screen acting stupid. Sure, there's stupid and way over-exaggerated jokes, but it works, and it's part of the fun. The whole movie works to certain degrees and that's what surprises me. I expected to just walk out so uninspired and lost on many of what it attempts to do, but I found myself smiling and some-what giggling along with the rest of the crowd, who were howling with laughter.
This is what a blockbuster should be. I'm not saying remake all old properties, but if you must, do something different with it. Give it a reason to exist. Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle overcomes all of it's obstacles, remaking an "unremakable" classic, being branded with infamous Sony pictures, and having just general low expectations among other movies released around the same time. It's not perfect, there's beats I had issues with and there was a lot more that could've been developed, but as is, this Jumanji sequel explodes and roars a breath of relieving fresh air and was a lot of fun, something I don't say about most blockbusters of today. I'm looking at you, every shit Marvel movie released this year. Surprising to find the director of this mostly did adult comedies before this.