Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (Starring Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart, Jack Black, and Karen Gillan)

We took the snow day opportunity to go to the movies. We saw the new Jumanji film, and it lived up my high expectations for it.

The bar where I work is adjacent to a really nice 16-screen theater, so I talk to a lot of movie-goers, and Jumanji has been one of the most watched films recently. Having heard nothing but good things about it, I knew it had the potential to be a film all four of us would enjoy.

We had all liked the original Robin Williams film–it was one of those where my first viewing coincided with the boys’–and we also liked those Journey to the Center of the Earth films, which it kind of resembled in the trailers, so I expected good things from it. We weren’t disappointed.

Yes, it’s easy to see that the film’s target audience is 14 year-old boys, but it’s funny and the action is exciting enough to keep going and the story developed to keep it interesting.

I’m not going to go into any detail concerning the story, because doing so would risk ruining the films one “Ah-ha”  moment, but the comedy works. Jake, our friend, who is a manager of the theater, and Finn both agreed that they thought Jack Black stole the show, but I wasn’t so certain. Black was quite adept at playing a difficult role, but when I laughed out loud–eight or ten times at least–it was usually Hart who was pulling my strings.

And don’t forget Dwayne “The Rock”; he’s not the shabbiest when it comes to comedy either. He had one line about how he wouldn’t have said something in that manner that might have been the funniest moment of the film for me. The script wasn’t Karen Gillan to try to compete with her more established co-stars when it came to the comedy, but even if everybody else had been dressed like go-go dancers too, she still would have looked the best. Sorry, but that’s why she was wearing it; besides, they had to do something to offset “The Rock” about to bust out of a tight safari shirt.

Like I said, it was made with 14 year-old boys in mind. Being so, it also had it’s share of sexual innuendo and more than that of PG-13 language, but it wasn’t anything our boys aren’t going to hear on playgrounds, so we’ll make it through it. I can’t imagine we would have taken them if we’d have known it had the more adult themes–even treated lightly–and the language, but I guess I wasn’t even thinking about the possibility. I was probably just painting it with the same brush as the last one; oh, well, we learn from living.

It was proof to me that our boys are conscious of what they’re exposed to, as, when we were leaving, Finn says, “There certainly were a lot of curse words in that movie.” I agreed and apologized. He was cool, and we headed to the car.

All in all, however, it was a good few hours of relaxation in our busy world, and later, when I lament Beck and the kids having to go to school one day later in the year, I’ll remind myself that day paid for this one, and this one a nice one indeed.