Realising that Disney/Lucasfilm have pretty much got the adventure-cinema market sewn up this December, Sony/Columbia have decided to drop their own franchise entry startlingly close to its release date. Jumanji: The Next Level opens properly a week before Episode IX, but can it compete?
THIRD Well, kinda. While it’s technically the third Jumanji film, this is very much the second chapter of 2017’s soft-reboot, and tonally it’s on the same page. In fact narratively, it’s barely even on the next page.
After a setup sequence which takes far too long considering how perfunctory it all turns out to be, our heroes (Morgan Turner, Madison Iseman, Ser’Darius Blain) are transported once again to the simulated otherworld of Jumanji in a bid to find their missing friend (Alex Wolff), adopting the in-game personas of Karen Gillan, Kevin Hart, Jack Black and Dwayne Johnson. Additional cast-members in the real world come from Danny DeVito and Danny Glover, while extra star-billing avatars arrive in the forms of Awkwafina and Rory McCann. Nick Jonas and Rhys Darby return in roles they could have probably filmed in a single day.
LIONHEART And it’s all good fun, with a self-aware script buoying up the rollicking adventure and stunning visuals*1. The problem is that we’ve already done this, and The Next Level always feels like a remix of Welcome To The Jungle without really bringing any new content. The body-swap motif from last time is replayed and there’s extra mileage here in exploring that further, but ultimately this is a device to get the most out of the in-game cast, and it feels like padding. The central adventure itself is a linear affair, with its story-admin often coming off as cumbersome.
BREEZER Sequel-movies have always been saddled with this burden of course, and sequel-games even more so. It stands to reason that this project would suffer. Any gamer will be hard-pushed to break the programming of their surroundings, and the law of diminishing returns is the most unforgiving of all. 2017’s entry had pleasant surprise as its super-weapon; this follow-up isn’t playing with the same armoury. So perhaps it’s unavoidable (if not intentional), but even coasting along on effortless charm The Next Level feels disposable at best.
But enough of my moaning.Jumanji: The Next Levelis good-spirited, undemanding fun. And any movie which can have me consistently enjoying performances from Jack Black and Kevin Hart must be doing a lot of things right…
What’s more, combine it with the Wilhelm Scream in the pre-movie McDonald's advert, the one in the Amazon Fire TV spot and Cineworld's new 2020-promo, and that's pretty good for an evening out. And given the scream-stats for 2019, it's about damned time.
Level 2: Jack Black is in this, and he was in that Gulliver's Travels along with Jonathan 'Jebel' Aris.
*1 The 3D version of this movie is Very Much In 3D All Of The Time, which feels a little overblown in the first act before the action begins, but is still a sweet touch for a format which the industry has all but dropped in 2019... [ BACK ]
DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
More and more these days, I seem to be turning into Ronan The Accuser from Guardians Of The Galaxy. As Cameron Diaz and Jason Segel acrobatically gurned their way through an extended sex scene in the first act of this film, I actually found my brow furrowing in shock and confusion at the screen, as I wanted to stop everything right there and ask "…what are you doing?".
If there's one thing Sex Tape sells really well, it's the awkwardness, shame and overall embarrassment of watching an amateurish, ill-advised film made by people you thought you knew and respected. Cringe-inducing for all the wrong reasons, Jake Kasdan's latest film is torn between being a haphazardly strung together collection of half-written sketches, and a 90 minute Apple commercial*1. But don't worry, the saucy antics and hi-jinks capers will save things, right? Because the last time Kasdan directed Diaz and Segel in an Outrageous Comedy™, that worked out well for everybody, didn't it?
From the opening sequence featuring a "college age" pairing of Diaz and Segel (which I can only imagine was achieved by a combination of make-up, CGI and cheap fairground mirrors), through The Sex Scene™, and all the way to the point where a middle-aged couple take their two young children to break into (and vandalise) the server-warehouse of a pornography website, the whole sordid affair feels like a joke which got out of hand. By the time you insert moralising platitudes every twenty minutes (one burst of which comes from Jack Black in a career low-point as a sentimental pornographer), it's really difficult to imagine who this film is aimed at. Not raucous enough for the teen crowd, not warm-hearted enough for their parents, it's just sort of… grubby, really.
The only (and I mean only) respite comes from Rob Lowe who once again shines as the CEO of a wholesome toy company*2 who has a Disney fixation and spends his spare time listening to Slayer and doing coke. It's not a part that's expanded properly at all, but it's the only piece of bizarre fun you're likely to get out of this mess.
An exercise in poor decision making, shame and regret, Sex Tape does exactly what it says on the tin.
It's every bit as bad; although interestingly, the film can rarely be bothered to be worse.
Chortled through the Rob Lowe segment - that's about it.
Oh, it probably does.
If you pay money to see this film we can't be friends any more.
If you like this film we can't be friends any more.
Nope.
Nope.
Isn't a gobby, smartarsed kid in a Jason Segel film supposed to get a fucking good slap as his comeuppance? I thought that was The Comedy Thing? He's particularly obnoxiously written, after all...
*1 I'm not hating, I'm writing this on a Mac, but the product placement in Sex Tape almost rivals Google's in The Internship. In one "oh, fuck off" moment, Jason Segel's Jay even remarks on how robustly designed the iPad is. At a point where he's talking to himself. I kid you not.
*2 The toy company which, inexplicably, wants to "buy" Annie's (Diaz's) blog, and is then hesitant about the "racy" content, despite the film giving the impression that that's essentially what the blog is. Again, the concept is essentially a crutch for one sketch, so isn't expanded on at all, but why an actual corporation would be interested in a blog as banal and unprofessional as Annie's is inconceivable, especially as they'd have a marketing department to just replicate the tone and feel of it if that's what they wanted.
Look, if anyone knows about having a niche, cluttered, unsaleable blog, it's me, okay?
DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
