"Dude, that looks so stupid."
"Oh, so stupid!"
"...You gonna see it?"
"Yeah, I'm gonna see it!"
This conversation is a symptom of a nationwide phenomenon of which Hollywood is fully aware. In most cases, the previous conversation would have come to its conclusion after the first two sentences. What, then, sets off the chain reaction beginning with the latter two sentences and ends with a movie like Jumanji accumulating over 360 million dollars at the worldwide box office (and climbing)? It can all be explained by what I have begun to call the "Cash-grab Cast Corollary."
I'll elaborate on that topic later; but first I want to give you my overall impression of the movie. For starters, I'll acknowledge the fact that any director would be hard-pressed to make an impressive film with this premise. Which, frankly, raises more questions from me than it answers, but I'll leave it at that. I will say that, considering what this movie is, the job that was done was probably as good as it could be. In other words, I'm saying my main beef with Jumanji did not come from the fact that it was executed poorly (even though it was), but from the fact that such a poor premise should never have been executed in the first place. Additionally, it has no business being as popular or successful as it is.
For starters, yes--the plot is ridiculous. I would have been willing to look past that--I really would have--but the lack of consistency killed me. The plot kept jumping back-and-forth from being in a video game and not being in a video game, only applying certain standards when it was convenient. In short, the rules of the game and how it all works was not explained in the slightest. To make it seem more realistic, there were apparently unexplained "rules" to the game that were supposed to give the illusion of it being real. But, right when things become too ridiculous for its own good, everyone says, "Well they're in a video game, duh!"
Look, if it's a video game, at least make it consistently ridiculous. I don't have a problem with ridiculous. I do have a problem with the fact that so much of the movie tries to be a real-world action movie with random video-game-like segments dashed throughout it. If you establish a video-game-like standards, you have the green light to be as ridiculous as video games are. But trying to make an action movie that takes place in a video game with unexplained real-world consequences is just infuriating and annoying. Oh, and that's another thing. Not only were the rules of the real life vs. video game consequences blurry and inconsistent, but the rules within the came contradict each other left and right! Give me a break.
Do me a favor. If you've seen it, look at the first 20-ish minutes (the part with just the kids) of the movie. It is an excellent indication of what the movie would be like without all the beloved actors that show up later. Everything with the high school kids before they find the video game is painful to watch in just about every way. Every cliché about high school students, teachers, and dynamics is crammed into what felt like an unresolved episode of Victorious or Zoey 101. I'm pretty sure the writers have either been out of school for so long or are just so lazy that their only exposure to teenagers are drawn-out episodes of teenager-targeted 90's sitcoms. Which brings me to my explanation of the Cash-grab Cast Corollary.
I've read and heard many things about this movie being "hilarious." OK...no. The movie is not hilarious, and you don't think so, either. Did I laugh during the movie? Yes--many times, in fact. But what exactly is everyone laughing about? Think of it this way: If a movie is truly funny, you will be quoting it left and right. This is not a movie people will be quoting often, and probably won't be quoting at all. But we all still laughed, right? Yes--but not at the script. We laughed because we love the voices and mannerisms of Kevin Hart and Jack Black. In other words, the delivery of the funny actors is what we found to be hilarious. If you think of scenes that you found funny, imagine an unimpressive actor tying to mimic it. Horrible, right? Thus, if a line is inherently funny, anyone can stir up laughter by delivering it. Just look at IT or even Psych. The kids in IT were funny, but they had really good lines to work with. The same goes for Shawn Spencer in Psych. He's actually a decent actor, but he's primarily funny because his lines are so good. And that brings us back to Jumanji. What Jack Black and Kevin Hart say and do is not funny; what's funny is the way they say and do things.
If this movie starred an unknown cast, nobody would look twice at it, and the conversation at the start of this review would have been half as long. And Hollywood knows this. So what do they do? They pay insane amounts of money to famous and popular actors to deliver their garbage in an impressive manner, and make hundreds of millions of dollars in the process. Unfortunately, none of us are able to stop it. Why? Because we're all known victims to it, and we're OK with it. Thus the Cash-grab Cast Corollary will become even more rampant, and movies will unfortunately continue to become lazier, lamer, longer, and still make more money.
My initial impression of this movie was that it might be Netflix Worthy, but some more reflection and discussion have influenced me to give this movie a well-deserved 39%, and send it off to its rightful place in the high desert's
Pawn Shop
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