Taking an adventure through Jumanji: The Movie

“Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle” is a modern take on its predecessor, incorporating new technology and characters into its story.

The film follows the story of Spencer, Fridge, Bethany, and Martha, who have all stumbled upon an old video game set while cleaning out their school storage room as punishment.

They set it up, choose their characters and with the final press of the button, jungle beats and drums start to sound, dust falls all around and they are sucked into the game with a flash and swirl of green light, immediately faced with new challenges and tasks.

Like the original “Jumanji,” it keeps the player and game interaction, and welcomes all to the jungle. It follows the same premise that once the game is started, there is no turning back until it is completed, and then the players who are stuck in the game are returned to the time period from which they first entered the game.

However it deviates after that. In the original movie, “Jumanji” was a board game. Moving pieces and rolling dice until reaching the last space then rolling doubles, won the game. In the new one, the Jumanji evolves into an old video game console that provides a quest line and characters with different strengths and weaknesses that the players use. The end result is still the same; the world is returned to normal.

The new cast of “Jumanji” stars Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Kevin Hart, Jack Black, Nick Jonas, and Karen Gillan. Each one has been in a previous movie before and has many accolades in the entertainment business as well as numerous followers.

In fact, Johnson and Hart, co-starred in the comedy blockbuster, “Central Intelligence,” and their prior experience shows in their acting on and behind the scenes.

This star-studded cast coupled with the background and past experience of all the actors makes for a great movie in my opinion. The action sequences were good, and the story was nice and well explained, but the predominant feature was the comedy. I found myself laughing multiple times during the movie, and also the people around me were too. There were a couple times when the entire theatre erupted in laughter.

The movie is filled with action, adventure, and loads of laughter and humor with the characters constantly going back and forth with wise remarks or witty banter. I highly recommend people go watch it.