Jumanji: The Next Level Parent Guide

After escaping from Jumanji, a game that comes to terrifying life, Spencer (Alex Wolff), Martha (Morgan Turner), Anthony (Ser’Darius Blain), and Bethany (Madison Iseman) agreed to destroy the game to prevent anyone else from being sucked in. Secretly, Spencer decided to keep the pieces, and reassembled the game for another chance to be the muscular Dr. Smolder Bravestone (Dwayne Johnson) in a virtual world. When his friends try to rescue him, they accidentally bring along Spencer’s grandfather Eddie (Danny DeVito) and his old friend Milo (Danny Glover). With such an unlikely cast of heroes, what hope do they have of rescuing Spencer?

If you saw the last entry in this franchise, you’ll have a good idea what to expect here. Another case of “second verse, same as the first”, Jumanji: The Next Level still manages to be a reasonably entertaining way to kill two hours, provided you have two hours to kill this close to the holidays.

With a surprisingly character-focused premise, Jumanji: The Next Level has a good time bouncing around between goofy CGI action set pieces, being chased by mandrills, madmen, and…uh…”m-emus”, with characters rapid-firing quips and banter at one another and their surroundings. I was actually expecting to be frustrated with this movie, since my sequel fatigue is approaching terminal levels, but the film is sufficiently sincere and well intentioned to keep me from ranting as much as I had expected.

I seem to recall the comedy being a little stronger in the first film, but this doesn’t reach failed-comedy levels of aggravating. About three-quarters of the jokes landed, which is better than most dumb action comedies I’ve seen. The content is cleaner than most as well, with almost no sexual content (barring Ruby Roundhouse’s silly outfit), little profanity more significant than “hell” or “damn”, and violence that is firmly in the “slapstick” category.

It may be too frightening for small children, but for older kids and teens, this is a fun time with some good messages about self-worth, talent, and friendship. Better yet for a kid-friendly movie, it’s not so long or so irritating it makes the parents in the audience start trying to induce air embolisms into major arteries with their $5 drink straws. I don’t know about you, but this kind of movie doesn’t come around quite often enough. If more films were this much fun, I would have far fewer weird straw-shaped bruises on my arm.