JUMANJI: THE NEXT LEVEL (O-RVZ MOVIE REVIEW)

Jumanji: The Next Level is a sequel to 2017's Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle. (Fun fact: This was the movie that I first reviewed after creating O-RVZ MOVIE Review as Facebook Group Page). It stars the original casts from the previous movie and the story sets off right after the event of Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle. It is the third movie of the Jumanji franchise and I really loved what they have brought of the 2017 movie in terms of the story, execution, comedy and the chemistry of each of the stars particularly those who played the avatars of the Jumanji world. I was really happy that they made a sequel out of it considering how successful that movie was in terms of the critical reviews and box office. The big question coming off into this sequel is that, does it hold-up the same quality what the previous movie had delivered?

Jumanji: The Next Level is what you hoped to expect though there were bits of it that I didn't really like as much as I'd hoped to. The movie is still funny as hell because of the performances of the big hitters with the likes of Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart, Karen Gillan and Jack Black. I really like the additional Human characters (lets call them humans while the characters on Jumanji are Avatars for the sake of classifying the characters) that they have introduced providing more performances to be done to the avatars. All four of them really did well in providing different performances that would basically match to their corresponding human characters controlling them. Their chemistry are through the roof and they easily match compatibly with one another. There were so many moments that were funny that I couldn't help but to laughed-out-loud so hard on the theater. In terms of the cinematography, it was really good while some of it were really stunning. As they go through each of the levels, you would truly see some of the beautiful wide shots showing some different places. Visual effects are also great but it is as expected since the first movie was also that good in terms of the visual effects and a movie with this caliber and this type of story, you would certainly expect a top-notched quality. I also like that they have introduced some sort of a new mechanics on the movie inside the game as you would expect from a real-life video game. In a way, it doesn't feel like a repetition entirely from the previous movie but just only a portion of it. My only concern towards this movie is the story. It's not that such a big of a deal but it wasn't an issue at first since all of the movie was different back then but I hoped they could have add more something to it, maybe bringing up more mechanics to the game or more characters that aren't just one-dimensional characters regardless if they were avatar or human characters. Also, I think the main challenge on this if they will ever be a third one is how to put an impact of the story not just to the human characters but also to the avatars as well. They did introduce some backstory to the avatars on this movie but it wasn't really that effective and it didn't really elevate the story even further. Most of the time, we are only seeing the avatar characters on screen but they are still playing the human characters inside the game. With that, the story that they will always be bringing are the human characters story and while the avatars are much more entertaining than the human characters, unfortunately, there's no real story to them at all. They tried to do that here but the execution wasn't that good and it didn't even made any sense at all to the overall storyline. Also, this movie has the same issue towards the villain just like what I said on my previous review of the predecessor of it. The villain was lackluster, there was no personality and though it may work only as a standalone villain, still, they really wasted an opportunity of casting a very familiar face from one of the popular TV series Game of Thrones coming into this movie. If a sequel is to be made, I do hope that they would brainstorm more to it on bringing new things to the story not just on the human characters but also to the avatar characters as well.

OVERALL

Jumanji: The Next Level is still a good movie equipped with funny jokes, exciting adventures, stunning visuals, charismatic characters and overall a good popcorn flick for the family. There are moments that really felt like a repetition from the previous movie eventhough they added new things to it. The same issue that I had with the villain is still there but hopefully things could be a little bit better on the sequel of it. I hoped they add more things to the sequel and maybe even further out the story just to differentiate it from other Jumanji movies. I would still recommend this film because it is still that good of a sequel to the Jumanji franchise.