To be clear (because it is going to come up in a bit), before seeing Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle last week, the only exposure I had to seeing anything about this movie was the poster, and reading somewhere that Karen Gillan was trying to quell voices pointing out how scantily clad her character was in the first promo images coming out about the film. I did not even know that a Guns 'n Roses song was the tagline until the evening before heading out to the theatre. Basically I was going into this movie being about as blind as one could be with the exception of that knowing the movie existed.
The point of this hipster run up to my actual talking bits, is because the movie I watched that night contained nearly 50% of the plot for the 1993 Warcraft movie that I wrote back in August 2015. If you have not seen J:WttJ yet and do not want any spoilers, I urge you not to read that article. Yet, anyway; I actually think it's one of my better ones, but that's purely subjective because I'm me. The point is, what I wrote about what I feared a Warcraft movie would be about, is a lot of what J:WttJ did in fact turn into, but here it worked instead of being a mostly cringe-worthy mess.
Was J:WttJ a bad film? No. But J:WttJ was not a great movie by any stretch of my imagination. It was a fun movie that was entertaining and I would be lying if I said that I was bored at all during the 119 minutes the movie ran for. The movie does a lot right with what they were trying to accomplish, but they also do do some things wrong even they acknowledged its shortcomings.
Again, without trying to spoil much, recall the outcry against the movie's costuming decision to put Karen Gillan in about as much clothing as Dwayne Johnson's pants. Now the this design choice is addressed within the movie itself and it receives a bit of chuckle, but then it ventured into a scenario similar to that of one in Persona 5 that the Extra Credits made and excellent point about. In the movie, it is acknowledged that the character of Martha is uncomfortable in her outfit, but then at the behest of the entire group, she is made to use her sexuality in a pretty demeaning and insulting way. Considering her skills include various forms of martial arts, and something called "Dance Fighting." So rather than having her use her other non sexualized fighting skills, in two instances she is forced to resort to dancing around a group of NPCs before kicking their asses. Imagine if Jackie Chan had been playing someone recovering from alcohol abuse at the beginning of The Legend of Drunken Master and is forced to become drunk every time he is forced through situations beyond his control to defend his familial village from having their relics stolen.
Alright, climbing down from my pedestalled horse of soap now.
The original point of all this is that I was amused at how many similarities there were between my 8/10/15 article and Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle. Although at the end of my movie, AC/DC would have played and not Guns N' Roses. Anyway if you're looking for a movie to just sit back and be entertained, this might be a pretty good option*.
~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
*P.S. Unless you already don't like The Rock, Karen Gillan, Kevin Hart, or Jack Black.
P.P.S. I must admit, I did not know anything about Nick Jonas being in this movie, but thought he did a really good job with his role. Surprisingly so.
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