jumanji welcome to the jungle turned out
far better than anyone had any right to
expect what initially sounded soulless
and cynical ended up being a massively
successful well-received family-friendly
thrill ride for kids and adults alike
starring Dwayne Johnson Kevin Hart Jack
Black and Karen Gillan the movie
effectively built on the 1995 story
about a magical board game with a video
game based body swap comedy sequel
welcome to the jungle made a lot out of
a wacky premise but that doesn't mean it
was perfect
many of its quirks won't be picked up by
younger viewers but the adults in the
room probably noticed them here are some
of the things only grown-ups will notice
in Jumanji welcome to the jungle what
console is that Jumanji opens in 1996
introducing viewers to a teenage boy
named Alex in a sleeveless Metallica tee
whose bedroom is covered in pop culture
posters from the era
nothing says 1996 teenager like his
quick dismissal of the Jumanji board
game in favor of his trusty PlayStation
controller we see he's playing twisted
metal a game that was released for the
PlayStation in November 1995 but when we
paused to marvel at all the authentic
90s stuff in his room we get a good look
at the console itself
spoiler alert that's no PlayStation it
doesn't even remotely resemble a
PlayStation from the looks of things
it's closest twin is the Atari 2600 a
wood-paneled console that was already 20
years old in the mid 90s and of course
since you've noticed it once you're not
going to be able to ignore that all the
controllers go from Playstation to
vaguely Nintendo esque when the kids
pull the game out at the school
fittingly enough they can't make heads
or tails of this odd contraption either
there's like some type of old-school
Nintendo something I don't think so
don't recognize it have your cheesecake
it seems to be a common belief that just
acknowledging overdone cliched tropes is
enough to subvert them in movies or
shows but that's not really always the
case Jumanji uses Martha as a mouthpiece
to criticize the unnecessarily skimpy
outfit worn by her avatar Rivi
roundhouse
but as good a sentiment as this might be
the film is making this commentary on
how women are designed in video games
while it simultaneously benefits from
having a young actress in a skimpy
outfit fortunately the movie is brimming
with charm and doesn't rely too heavily
on sexy shots of a woman's body to keep
people watching in fact she has bits of
her male companions outfits to her own
in order to feel a bit more comfortable
as she journeys through the jungle
kicking bad guy butt with her dance
fighting techniques but the marketing
for the movie has no such subtlety
making this a noticeable instance of
Jumanji wanting to have its cake and eat
it too
perish the thought at the midpoint in
the film when the teens have been set
upon by corrupt researcher Russell Van
Pelt and there's no obvious way to move
forward the missing teenager Alex shows
up in the Avatar of Jefferson seaplane
McDonagh he leads our heroes through a
hallway full of authentically videogame
e traps to his little hideaway set apart
from the main Jumanji playing area he's
been holed up there for who knows how
long keeping his head down and trying to
hold on to his last life he explains to
the new kids that the little bungalow
where he lives
drinking delicious margaritas is not a
structure of his own making
instead it once belonged to a man named
Alan Parrish Alan Parrish is of course
Robin Williams character from the
original Jumanji not only as the
reference a lovely tip of the hat to
Alan's character it also gives fans of
the original movie a glimpse at how Alan
was living during his years away Alex is
amazing slang she's pretty fly she mom
I'm just saying I'm sure they'd like to
get jiggy with her Alex is tortured 90
slang is out of place in the jungle and
also this century but his lame-o
vocabulary helps the four kids realize
that the Alex they've found inside the
game is Alex freak the boy who's been
missing and stuck in Jumanji for 20
years it's not a bad idea to use
outdated slang to tip off the characters
that alex is from another era but there
are a few problems here
one is that Will Smith's gettin jiggy
with it came out in 1997 1996 plus
exactly zero people have ever actually
used the phrase gettin jiggy
in conversation ever ask your parents
also if they were going to go there with
that style of slang they probably should
have gone with a different
characterization for Alex instead of a
metallic of tea and a grungy hairstyle
he probably should have been wearing a
cross colors tank top in some radical
prints the walls of his bedroom should
have been covered in TLC and Michael
Jordan posters
now that's 90s instead his lingo comes
off as forced everyone knows mid 90s
metalheads didn't say anything was the
bomb and again no one really knows what
they say sometimes the empty fridge
well Kevin Hart does good work as
fridges avatar the fridge himself has no
real arc and learns no valuable life
lessons in the movie things start off
promising we learn that fridge asked
Spencer to do his homework as a favor
which turns out to be a bad idea
Spencer may be a nerd but he's not
necessarily a good student and the bogus
paper he provides for fridge is easily
sniffed out by his teacher as a result
fridge gets kicked off the football team
later when fridge and Spencers tension
comes to a head on a cliff in Jumanji
they get into a shoving match costing
Spencer one of his lives but by working
together through the rest of the
adventure they gain a mutual respect for
one another still at the end of the
movie the problems that led to that
cliff confrontation are still there the
boys haven't hashed out their personal
conflict fridge doesn't apologize for
using Spencer to do his homework nor for
insulting and intimidating him in
Jumanji they don't team up in the real
world to get fridge reinstated to the
football team there's no shot of fridge
working hard on his own homework or
doing anything to wrap up the problems
that got him in detention in the first
place all that's changed about him at
the end of his bogus journey with
Spencer Bethany and Martha is that he
seems nicer and vaguely content the
movie doesn't want you to notice it but
his academic and athletic future is
still severely compromised by the
movie's end compare him to the other
characters
Bethany finally begins to take an
interest in the world outside herself
Spencer gets the nerve to take a chance
and kiss Martha and Martha gets over her
shy nervous Nissen ufff to kiss him back
frig just been all afternoon playing
video games but all of his problems are
still there that's kind of how real life
works too
the Alex paradox Jumanji is a family
movie so a happy ending is pretty much
par for the course but let's put on our
thinking caps for a second the
implications of Alex returning to the
moment of his disappearance after being
trapped inside the game for 20 years
should probably be more severe than the
movie lets on no seriously let's talk
about this if a butterfly flapping its
wings in one location can have a
dramatic ripple effect on everything
else in the world then a human teenager
going missing would fundamentally change
the fabric of at least Brantford New
Hampshire Alex's unexplained
disappearance from this small town was a
major cultural touchstone for everyone
who lived there it's mentioned multiple
times by different characters at the
start of the film and it's the sort of
event that would have all kinds of small
effects on people's relationships and
behavior parents probably have his
disappearance in the back of their minds
while they're raising their kids old man
freak who is once vigorous and full of
life has his destiny dramatically
changed by the anguish from mysteriously
losing his son the disappearance leads
other people in town to be more cautious
over the years that follow the ending
should have been more like Back to the
Future with the tiniest changes in the
past having major effects in the years
that followed but nope that never
happened
even after the timeline where Spencer
fridge Martha and Bethany were living
and gets winked out of existence and
replaced by this new world where Alex
never went missing everything outside of
Alex's family ends up being exactly the
same
beyond the confines of his household it
appears that Alex's absence from the
world meant just about nothing that's
insane right at no point in your
rambling incoherent response were you
even close to anything that could be
considered a rational thought look okay
fine sure we realized this is a movie
about a magical video game but that
still just doesn't make a whole lot of
sense okay
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