2017 a continuation of 1995 movie.

It must be quickly pinpointed that this action, adventure, comedy fantasy is not the Joe Johnston’s 1995 film. Dwayne Johnson, in one of his social media statuses clarifies this when he opines that Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle 2017 is essentially ‘a continuation’ of the initial Jumanji story. Nick Jonas, the pop star who features as Alex corroborates Johnson’s claim when he says: ‘What is great about the new film is the respect for the original.’

Remake

Truly, this new remake has rich antecedents: the Jumanji of 1995 box office hit was followed by the spiritual sequel Zathura: A Space Adventure in 2005. A sequel of the sequel, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle is due for release on December 20, 2017.

All of the concepts and ideas that make these movies a screen reality were originally conceptualized and birthed by a certain children’s book writer – Chris Van Allsburg. His 1981 book, Jumanji is the sole inspiration behind the Jumanji movies, though another book of his, deemed to have more connection to the book Jumanji is the direct muse to Zathura: A Space Adventure.

The 2017 version was minted by: Chris Mckenna, Jeff Pinkner, Scott Roseenberg, and Eric Sommers, four imaginative screen writers who pulled their creative resources together in the construction and reconstruction of screen memorable moments.

The storyline:

The first forte of the film is in the story line. The movie opens with Alex Wolf picking a stray box at the beach. On that box is written: Jumanji. It turns out to be a game console.

Spencer and his friend Fridge (Anthony Johnson) commit a blatant infringement of their school rule. On the day they are to defend themselves, they happen to meet two other offenders: Bethany (Madison Iseman) and Martha (Morgan Turner). The school would not pardon them until they are punished. The punishment is that they will be locked away in detention: a jam-packed room in the school. The job of the quartet is to sort out the odds and sods in the room.

While they try to make sense of the pile of hogwash that is the room, they seek a way out of their boredom as Spencer invites them to play the Jumanji: ‘A game for those who seek to find the world they leave behind.’ They hold their pads and launch the game. Surprisingly, each of them dissolves one after the other and appears right inside the game.

The movie’s real life setting is Hawaii. The first setting is the normal environment where the high school students have their parents and teachers and all they have ever known. As soon as they appear in the game, everything changes. The time setting is 1996.

The world of the game is a jungle. The jungle is an archetype for the world and human life. Everyone is fated to survive in the jungle that is life. Why survive? Because there are character-threatening monsters, life-zapping circumstances that are ready to rob people of all their possessions.

Anyone who does not wish to be robbed and killed must stand up and fight. So these people, though have not been the best of friends in school, have to bunch up, employ every wit and ounce of energy to get out of this dangerous game, and in time.

It isn't just the setting that’s illuminating, the characterization too is an acute revelation of who people become when they face adversity. A very remarkable twist to the characterization is in the fact that each character is hugely altered on this new side of life. For example, they realize that they have three lives (tattoos) on their hands, meaning, they are allowed to die twice, the third death is the end of the game.

When a character loses a life, they disappear and then appear in the sky falling back into the jungle. The tattoos are on their hands (wrists) because everyone has their destiny in their hands. Whatever people achieve in life, it is with their hands they must do the work. Another fascinating aspect to the movie’s treatment of characterization is that the characters have different bodies other than what they have in their normal lives. So it is not just that they are stuck in a game, they are also riveted to foreign bodies.

This is where a slight confusion may come in for a careless viewer. Little Spencer becomes hefty Dr. Bravestone. Fridge changes to Finbar. Bethany, a female student in reality, becomes a male Professor, Shelly Oberon. Martha remains a female but in another female’s body, Ruby Roundhouse.

Another yet diverting facet of each character is that they appear in older bodies, not as teenagers that they really are in the other world. They are alarmed finding themselves in new older bodies. The bodies are old because they need to become men and women in order to face the challenges of life. Had they appeared as teenagers in this jungle, indubitable it is, that they would not survive the antipathies and challenges. ‘Older’ here, does not mean aged, it only signifies that they are more conversant than their teenage selves.

These bodies have strengths and weaknesses and they get to plainly see these when they tap their chest. Why the tapping of chest? This shows that if people can search their hearts (scour within), they would find out who they are. An understanding of their Achilles’ heels and strengths helps them steer clear of the things that might ruin them, though Finbar goes ahead to eat cake despite knowing it as his weakness. He pays for it as he loses a life in an explosion.

Each time people defy their weak spots, they must be ready for the consequences. The major characters are scholastically labeled. One is a prof, another a doctor etc. Not only that, they all have professions and it is their professions that help them to unknot the riddles. Their professions are parts and parcel of their strong points. The map reader in their midst helps to read the map for a sense of direction while Roundhouse distracts the guards with her dance steps and music.

Dr. Bravestone is in actual sense a very timorous person. This explains the reason he could not confess his affection for Martha in school. Here, he is an audacious soul and an inspiration for the group. His bag of weapons is strapped to Finbar’s back. He makes use of ‘boomerang,’ an instrument from the bag during the time they are being pursued. When he flings it, nothing happens.

That is exactly what happens with human behavior. Every action is a seed being sown. The weapon turns around to hit the enemies a while later. Whatever seed is sown in behavior today, will be reaped sometime in the future. The very fact that it is Finbar that carries the backpack that contains Dr. Bravestone’s amour points to the truism of the saying that no man is an island.

People are the strengths of other people, no wonder human beings are relational beings. There is a lot of power in finding a helping hand. Dr. Bravestone would not have been able to fight with such freedom and dexterity if he had such a burden on his back.

They meet as an NPC (Non Player Character) when they freshly appear in the jungle. The character (NPC) is not meant to take any active role. He only introduces the characters to the task ahead. He gives them the map and tells them about the desperate need to save Jumanji.

Around this time, the villain (Bobby Canavale), is introduced. He seeks the Jewel of Jumanji so that he would wield a lot of power and control the whole of the Jumanji forest. The NPC steals the Jewel from the power hungry antagonist and hands it to Dr. Bravestone who along with his team must find the statue of jaguar and fix the Jewel in its eye socket where it belongs.

The NPC adds that the only route out of the jungle is the restoration of the Jaguar’s eye, that way, the curse on the jungle is lifted. He gives them a map to the Jaguar before he rides away in his Jeep.

The kleptomaniacal antagonist from whom the jewel is stolen haunts the four friends in order to retrieve it. The evil one sends a vulture to find out the whereabouts of the group. The vulture, epitomizes horror and vampirism, elements of the evil that are easily found in the prof, his men and his animals.

The group faces several life-taking tests as they follow the dictates of the map. Their love for one another is tested as Dr. Bravestone and Finbar fall into an egoistic tiff that leaves Finbar pushing Bravestone down a cliff thereby wasting a life. They soon come together because they realize their leaving the jungle cannot be but through a collaborative effort.

The group has to find the missing piece of the map after the defanging-the-snake episode where they are told to climb when they see an elephant. They have a hard time interpreting instructions. They meet Alex (American pop star, Nick Jonas) who leads them through precarious stages that eventually leave him in a coma.

The final life on his hand is fading. Prof Shelly, the archeologist could not stand this, he breathes into Alex so as to spare his life. Prof Shelly sacrifices one life leaving only one life with him. This scene exudes lots of love. That act is a typical symbol of love, a selfless love. It also reinforces the part of the scripture that explains how man becomes a living soul because God breathes into him the breath of life. This is the demonstration of Henry Bergson’s élan vital philosophy. It is a reminder of the creative life force that every human being possesses. Humans are capable of giving life as much as they are capable of giving death.

The quartet soon realizes that Alex is the missing part of the map. He is the kid that got lost twenty years ago, meaning he should be about fifty years old. Yet, he retains his youthful body. He is losing the hope of leaving because he only has one life left. Just any mistake on his part and the game is over.

Memorable lines abound in the movie

Prof Shelly says: ‘You get so deep in your own stuff that you forget other people have problems too.’ This is true of most people who think they are the only ones experiencing difficult situations. Here’s another striking line: ‘We always have one life. The question is how are you going to live it?’ Finbar asks Dr. Bravestone.

This is central to the film as it underpins the value that should be tagged to life. In reality, a lost life is lost forever, there are no other lives. This is the basic difference between the game people play and the life they lead. The titular tagline ‘welcome to the jungle’ is another way of saying ‘welcome to life’ as it is believed that life is a jungle.

But that jungle can be turned into a miracle hence the word ‘Jumanji.’ ‘Jumanji’ sounds African and magical. Magical is the way to look at life when the reality is too harsh. But even in magic land, things go wrong, hence the infestation of many hazardous people and animals in Jumanji.

Jake places ultimate solution in the fixing of the jewel in the Jaguar’s eye. The main characters return one after the other but Dr. Bravestone has so gotten used to his hefty, fearless body and the love he finds in Ruby Roundhouse that he does not want to leave.

The editing was meticulously handled by Steve Edwards and Mark Helfish. It does not leave room for superfluous scenes. The scenes logically connect. Special effects were manned by eleven people who made sure that the magic of the movie was not unceremoniously given away. A film of this nature relies on SFX, if it turns out to be a bummer here, the film would not get it right in many other aspects. When a character loses a life, the trick that happens is so mesmerizingly believably unbelievable because it happens so fast.

Andres Amaya, the lighting technical director and Nicolas Barbier, the lighting artist were able to bring a convincing touch to the lighting, especially the scenes that were shot in the jungle at night. Excess lighting would have just killed the scenes. The jungle scene where the lamps lit themselves from the vibes of the jewel happens to be one of the carefully lit scenes. The hand of Ronald R. Reiss, the set decorator also shows here.

Jean Shanon, the costume designer should have done something different for Roundhouse. That’s a jungle for crying out loud, there should be a feel of the exotic even on the costume. All of the human characters in the jungle should have been made to look more like the jungle. The costume should be epic.

The man in charge of music was Henri Jackman. Each time Roundhouse is performing her stunts on the enemies, it is often in the mix of ‘Oh baby I love you.’ When action is happening, the audio alone would get you to the edge of the seat. The sound managers did well with the African drums that roll whenever someone finds the game or when the game is about to make something happen.

The movie ends when the teenagers hear the drums roll. Out of the fear that something might still happen, Fridge smashes the game on the ground. But, is that really the end of the game? As Dr. Bravestone states ‘we are in the game,’ many people out here are still in the game. Life is a game and everyone who is alive is inevitably playing the game.

The movie opens in cinemas on December 22, 2017

Written by Omidire Idowu.

Omidire, Idowu Joshua is a researcher, a creative writer, a proficient proofreader and editor whose works have appeared on different online magazines and anthologies. You may contact him through noblelifeliver@gmail.com or via twitter: @IAmEeagleHeart