Alright, of
course I'm gonna be the first to post in this thread.
First impressions; I really liked the film. It was funny, and adventurous and action packed. The 5 in-game cast members had really good chemistry on screen and that made it even better when you add on the fact that they're also trying to act like teenagers.
I liked the idea of "levels" and how the characters had lives as well. The music behind the film had a John Williams feel to it which made it fun to watch.
Now, about the way they handled how the game changed at the beginning.... I mean, it was cool, I just wish they would have used the real board. (As if I need to reiterate that.)
I was also kind of "eh" about the way the high school group found the game. There were no drums or lights or anything to attract their attention, or any real explanation as to why the game was in the basement of the high school in the first place. It was only found on Fridge's pure curiosity.
(I also wanna add that it's kind of hard to immerse yourself into a film when all of the characters in the real world are exclusively using Sony products.)
Okay, now onto the inside of the game. I loved how they gave it that "video game" feel by making the NPCs like
REAL NPCs, i.e. set amount of dialogue and information, and ignoring other players who aren't important to the NPC.
I really liked the way the characters used their lives to their advantage to progress through the game. They began embracing their video game avatars pretty fast and had some good jokes sprinkled in here and there about being in an unfamiliar person's body.
Next up, I was really glad that they put in a reference to Alan Parrish in there. For those who have seen it, you'll know that it comes in the form of a carving in a treehouse that Alan built all those years ago, saying "ALAN PARRISH WAS HERE"
Last in-game things; I liked that the characters had a goal to meet and that when the game was over, there was a nice wide shot of the area around the jaguar statue. And then you could finally see that there were dirt paths all around the statue that form the shapes of the pathways on the original board, yet another nice nod to the original.
Post-game thoughts; I thought it was cool that the "freak house" was back to normal and that the 4 high school kids reunited with Alex, who had since grown into an adult and had children.
The one thing I was not a fan of, though, was the destruction of the game at the very end. In my personal opinion,
JUMANJI is much too powerful to be defeated and smashed by a group of kids and a bowling ball.
JUMANJI never dies. As such, there was no mid/after credits scene depicting who would discover the game next, which I felt was a poor decision on the writers part.
All in all, I liked the film, it was a great follow up to the original, and I hope that the legend continues sometime in the future.
