Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle

Jake Kasdan’s film is a continuation of the 1995 Jumanji rather than a remake: the game rebuilds itself as a video game cartridge in 1996. Carved into a wooden rail at the jungle hut is the line "Alan Parrish Was Here", a nod to Robin Williams’s character from the original, three years after his death. The defining choice is how early the rules are stated. Three lives each, strengths and weaknesses printed on the forearm, respawning after death: all of it is spoken aloud in the first twenty minutes, so the tension afterwards is arithmetic rather than mystery. Anyone remembering the 1995 film as a game nobody could understand gets a visible status display. One idea carries the comedy: Jack Black playing a teenage girl. If that joke misses, roughly a third of the film goes with it. Shooting began in Honolulu in September 2016, largely at Kualoa Ranch, and finished in Atlanta that December. Made for 90 million dollars, it rose about 38 percent in its second weekend to top the box office and passed 960 million worldwide. Who it is for: viewers happy with rules stated up front and a film leaning on Jack Black. Who it is not for: anyone expecting the animal stampede dread of the first film, since death here only means respawning.