‘Jumanji: Welcome To The Jungle’ Trailer: It’s Not All Fun And Games
How do you go about updatingJumanjifor 2017? By transforming that magical (and dangerous) board game of the title into a video game, of course.Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungleis a sort-of sequel to Joe Johnston’s 1995 film, withDwayne Johnson,Kevin Hart,Jack Black, andKaren Gillanstepping in for Robin Williams. Since that film has its fair share of nostalgic fans, the first trailer for this sequel/reboot is surely going to undergo some scrutiny.
So let’s get the scrutinizing started.
Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungleexpands on that basic premise in a fairly clever fashion: four teenagers discover an old video game, make the mistake of playing it, and find themselves sucked into a hostile jungle environment and inhabiting avatar bodies based on characters in the game. Naturally, these avatars are played by Johnson, Hart, Black, and Gillan. Since I like all four of these actors to varying degrees, I’m curious to see how they carry this movie…and how they’ll play teenagers playing adults.
Chris Van Allsburg’s original children’s book was really just a clever excuse to show off his evocative and lovely illustrations and the original film did a decent job of expanding that simple premise into an actual movie. I’m not as in love with it as some children of the ’90s are, but it’s a spirited family adventure with teeth that arejustsharp enough to lend some real edge and danger to the proceedings. I’m curious to see howJake Kasdan, a director best known for his comedies (Walk Hard,Bad Teacher, andSex Tape) approaches this material…and if he’ll provide some actual stakes alongside the gags and CGI animals.
Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungleis set to to open onDecember 20, 2017, so expect this to be one of the top picks for your literal or hypothetical children this holiday season.
