But in the process it manages to pull off something I once would have thought was impossible: It makes the original Jumanji look like a beloved cinema classic.Įxcitement! Suspense! Childlike innocence! Ingeniously staged action set pieces! These are a few of the things you will not find, anywhere, in “Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle.” The one performer in the film who establishes his own relaxed rhythm, and stays in it, is Nick Jonas, proving once again that he’s got quick-draw acting chops. And maybe those are the stakes we’re now playing for these days. It’s a diverting, mildly amusing, competent bit of big-budget studio product. Whenever the movie tiptoes up to actually being deeper and funnier and more clever than that, it seems to lose its nerve and doubles down on anvil-to-the-skull slapstick. But it’s fairly banal, and nothing you haven’t seen (done better) a thousand times before, minus the giant CGI hippos and marauding elephants. It’s hard to argue with something as well-intentioned as that. That these reluctant partners have to work through their differences and become a team. The underlying message of the film is that you can’t judge a book by its cover.
