Review by J1 Reporter Olivia Ost

Adventure, action and comedy are just some of the words that describe the thrilling adventures that take place in the film “Jumanji: The next level.” On December 13, 2019 the second movie of this new Jumanji series, directed by Jake Kasdan was released in theaters. Although this movie is a remake of the original Jumanji that came out in December of ’95, the plot strays in its own unique way. 

In the first of this new series, four teenagers come across a video game and find themselves sucked into the jungles of Jumanji. The only way to get out is to find the jewel and win the game, along with facing the hardships of characters in the game and struggling to stay alive. In this sequel the four friends all come home from college, and with such luck, are once again fighting the magical creatures they encounter in the next level of Jumanji. However, there is a twist, one of the teenager’s grandfathers and his friend just so happen to be sucked into the game as well. 

Throughout this two hour long rated PG13 movie, the radical teenagers, and elders that accompany them, fight to find one of their loved ones, Spencer, who has decided to go into the game without the others knowledge. The mission is to find him, win the game, and return home safely. However, things don’t always go as planned. You may have heard of some of the actors and actresses that appear in this film such as Dwayne  “The Rock” Johnson, Kevin Hart and Danny DeVito. You may even geek out when a character from the original Jumanji makes an appearance at the end of the film. 

For all the Jonas Brother fan out there, you may be thrilled to hear that Nick Jonas stars in this film with quite a dominant role in the first of the series as Alex, a teen who has been trapped in the video game for 20 years. In the sequel he comes back to help out his friends. 

The films budget was $125-132 million and was a box office hit, racking in $311.9 million surprisingly surpassing the original that earned $65 million. Since the movie just came out a couple of weeks ago, you can still find it in theaters with multiple showings at theaters such as Aksarben, AMC, Alamo, and Marcus with many more. Overall I would give this film 6 stars out of 10. The plot is kind of predictable and some of the lines are dry and not humorous. Although it was good, the original Jumanji starring Robin Williams will always be better.