We've Got Fun And Games

Year: 2017

Director: Jake Kasdan

Cast: Dwayne Johnson, Karen Gillan, Kevin Hart 

Run Time:1 hour 59 minutes

MPAA Rating: PG-13

Franchise filmmaking is full of some spectacularly bad ideas. But even in a year that featured a live action remake of Beauty and the Beast in which neither lead could really sing and Flatliners - a remake of a boring horror film that didn't do particularly great the first time around - the very worst idea they pulled out of that infinitely deep Mary Poppins bag of branding was Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle.

Consider that awful, awful subtitle. Consider the continuation of the insipid 90's nostalgia pandering that caused Fuller House and Will and Grace to be borne into the world unbidden. Consider the fact that the plot hinges around a video game in a flailing move to update the material for the kids of today. Consider the fact that the spirit of the original was the novelty of seeing wild animals prowl through the streets of modern suburbia and that this film completely ignores that and places them in their natural jungle setting for no good reason. 

I was ready to eviscerate this movie. And yet, against all odds, it's kind of... dare I say... good.

Isn't that wild?

The plot of Jumanji is pretty simple. A diverse quartet of kids are stuck in detention cleaning out an old basement, where they discover a dusty cartridge game titled Jumanji. They plug it in, select their characters, and suddenly the game sucks them into a real life, real dangerous jungle world, placing them in the bodies of their much-more-famous video game avatars. In order to escape, they must win the game. They have three lives, and to lose them all means they'll die in the real world. The object of the game is to return a stolen magical jewel to the eye of a giant jaguar statue, thwarting wicked villain Van Pelt (Bobby Cannavale) who used the gem's magic to turn the animals of the once-peaceful jungle into vicious, man-eating monsters.

The four obviously learn about the power of teamwork or friendship or whatever, but the film is mostly a loose series of comic adventure vignettes, propelled by something I haven't seen in a family movie in what feels like ages: actual character-based comedy. More on that miracle in a minute, but I suppose I should introduce you to the characters in brief.

First we have Spencer (Alex Wolff), a dweeby, shy kid who is afraid of everything thanks to his overprotective mother, who suddenly finds himself in the body of Dr. Smolder Bravestone (Dwayne Johnson), a dashing swashbuckler. Then there's Fridge (Ser'Darius Blain), a popular football player who has conscripted once-friend Spencer to do his homework for him, who winds up in the diminutive form of zoologist/weapons valet Mouse Finbar (Kevin Hart) - there is a joke about them initially reading his nickname as "Moose" that they don't even attempt to land. They are joined by nerdy girl and potential Spencer love interest Martha (Morgan Turner), now inhabiting the body of seductive, bad-ass Killer of Men Ruby Roundhouse (Karen Gillan), as well as popular, bubble-headed Instagram princess Bethany (Madison Iseman), now trapped in the middle-aged, portly form of cartographer Professor Shelly Oberon (Jack Black).

One of these things is less famous than the other.

OK, back to my point. The character comedy here is remarkable just for existing, but it's also a pretty delicate, layered approach that boggles the mind. The no fewer than four people who contributed to the script must have had a hell of a mind meld going on, because this screenplay is tight. 

To start off, the plot makes a big deal out of the strengths and weaknesses of each character in the game, as literally detailed by the game (Ruby Roundhouse's weakness is "venom", whereas Mouse Finbar's is "cake," and wouldn't you know it but those jokes around Kevin Hart still just refuse to work). But in addition to that, it weaves in the strengths and weaknesses of the teens as seen pre-transformation, and their personality traits interlock and dovetail from those of their avatars in a way that's a pure delight to watch.

These are unusually well-crafted characters, but they'd be nothing without the performers attached to each (well, most) of them. Dwayne Johnson and Karen Gillan seem like they could have been mo-capped by Alex Wolff and Morgan Turner for how much they physically inhabit the posture and movements of dweeby teens who don't know what to do with their bodies. It's an astoundingly anti-movie star set of performances that showcase their pure, unadulterated commitment to the roles. And then there's Jack Black, who steals the show so effortlessly that Danny Ocean is putting him on his Rolodex. I so wasn't ready to like Jack Black again, but he throws himself completely into playing the role of a teenage girl, and while the trailers made it seem like it would just be a grotesque caricature, he actually delivers a nonstop barrage of genuinely funny lines that push the envelope of gender representation in blockbuster filmmaking and dear God, I can't believe I'm writing a sentence like this in a review of Jumanji, for crying out loud.

I know, I'm just as surprised as you.

The only liability, as you may have noticed from my oh-so subtle hinting, is Kevin Hart. Not only is he given the film's worst material to trudge through, he in no way attempts anything other than his "shriek every line" schtick. He never manages to channel his teenage counterpart in any meaningful way, to the point that when you see Fridge again you have completely forgotten who he is, whereas you still feel like you've spent time with all the other characters even though they've been offscreen for over an hour. I'm not particularly a fan of Hart in anything, but never has he been so incompatible with an ensemble.

Luckily Mouse is used sparingly, so he doesn't drag the movie down too much. He's just a reminder that, for as much as Jumanji is surprisingly fun and engaging, it's still a generic family adventure movie. Maybe it's a tad edgier in the PG-13 department than you might expect, but it's no more emotionally complex or stylistically daring than, say, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales.

However, that doesn't stop it from being lighthearted popcorn movie fun. It's a shame that the movie's low stakes prevent Bobby Cannavale from really getting to dig his teeth into his villainous character (which he was clearly relishing), but other than that it's a rollicking, fizzy thrill ride from start to finish. I take back all my grumblings from every time this trailer came on in December.

TL;DR: Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle is far better than it has any right to be, with a solid ensemble bringing a set of unique characters to life.

Rating: 7/10

Word Count: 1165

Once On This Island

Year: 2016

Director: Ron Clements & John Musker

Cast: Auli'i Cravalho, Dwayne Johnson, Jemaine Clement

Run Time: 1 hour 46 minutes

MPAA Rating: PG

Disney is in the midst of what some might prematurely term a Third Golden Age, but let us always remember that following the likes of Chicken Little and Meet the Robinsons doesn’t leave newer entries with a high bar to clear. While I loved Tangled and Big Hero 6, Disney’s computer-animated output has never reached as consistent and satisfying a level as its two previous Golden Ages, which produced timeless works like Snow White, Pinocchio, and The Little Mermaid.

If you hold the much-ballyhooed Frozen up to the likes of Beauty and the Beast, the pitiful quasi-musical would melt in a microsecond. And while the box office-gobbling Zootopia is good, it’s an inconsistent allegory that hangs its hat on a Shakira track. So I urge you all to approach the highly praised Moana, Disney’s 56th theatrical animated feature, with a grain of salt, especially as it’s married to the other lavishly praised love object of 2016, Broadway songwriter Lin-Manuel Miranda, who is a terrific and talented person, but maybe not the second coming of Sondheim.

Forgive me theatre friends, for I have sinned. I have spoken against the church.

First, the plot. Moana is precede by the cute but inconsequential anatomy-based short “Inner Workings,” depicting the battle between an office drone’s head and heart (his job is a hilariously dour cross between the opening of The Producers and 1984 – the short has a killer electronic score and a cool mixed-medium design, but it’s no “Piper.”)

So, Moana (Auli’i Cravalho) is the daughter of Chief Tui (Temuera Morrison), the leader of a secluded island village. Moana longs to be an explorer out in the ocean, but nobody is allowed beyond the reef surrounding the island. However, when a dark force begins draining the island of tis resources, she must embrace her destiny, sail past the reef, find the deserted demigod Maui (Dwayne Johnson), and persuade him to return the Heart of Te Fiti, a mystical stone imbued with the power of creation. She must deliver him to the spot where he stole it (which is guarded by the lava demon Te Ka) in order to halt the encroaching darkness that threatens her island.

It’s definitely an inconvenient truth.

So, I’m gonna make a bold assumption and guess that you’ve seen any Disney movie before. If so, you’ve likely already experienced some element of Moana, which scavenges bits and pieces from Mulan, Pocahontas, The Little Mermaid, Pixar’s Brave, and pretty much every entry in the canon, polishing and renaming them like a regular Scuttle. Failing to carve out new territory isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but sometimes Moana uses its Disney ancestry to buff out gaping holes in its character arcs, assuming you already know how these stories go, so they don’t have to put in the maximum effort to have them makes sense this time.

Also, I hope you love adorable sidekicks, because Moana is rotten with ‘em. Moana could start an adorable sidekick baseball team with its roster, including a comically tiny pig that the movie pretty much straight-up admits will eventually be slaughtered, ditto an idiotic chicken named Heihei (Alan Tudyk, for some reason), a magical animated tattoo, and even the Actual Literal Ocean. Not since Aladdin found himself saddled with a genie, a monkey, and a flying carpet has there been such a  surplus of wacky reaction shots and goofy hijinks. None of them are execrable, like Frozen’s Olaf, Prince of Darkness, but it’s an overdose of saccharine at times.

But the best thing about Pixar’s island-themed short “Lava” is that no animated island projects could possibly be worse that that, so Moana is in a very safe place.

Well, that probably wasn’t a strong start to a positive review, but let’s carry on and see if we can’t pick things back up again. Moana is a charming film, even if it’s a little childish at times. Hell, it is for kids, and they’re gonna adore the ever-loving sh*t out of it, so who am I to complain? Although Moana could definitely do better than a frightfully repulsive pun about “Tweeting” that is damnable for its anachronism, but mostly because it’s just the pits, even worse than when Frozen bald-facedly stole the “we finish each other’s sandwiches” line from Arrested Development.

Wow, Frozen is really taking a beating tonight. Sorry, folks! I like “Let It Go.”

But let’s talk about the reason anybody over the age of 14 was excited to see Moana: Lin-Manuel Miranda, who co-wrote the music with Mark Mancina and Opetaia Foa’i. While I will never dispute that the musical orchestration itself is ever less than fantastic, his lyrics always seem to tend toward the descriptive rather than the poetic. Here’s an actual line from “I Am Moana (Song of the Ancestors)”:

"I am the daughter of the village chief / We are descended from voyagers… I am Moana."

It ain’t exactly Shakespeare. However, a song where he really pulls out all the metaphorical stops is the villainous ditty “Shiny,” sung with gusto by Flight of the Conchords’ Jemaine Clement. It’s a bombastic celebration of wicked wordplay that sparkles amidst many great pieces of music, including several tracks that are brave enough to include entire verses in native Pacific Islander languages, using the orchestration itself to carry the soaring emotional heft. I’m also partial to the opening verse of Moana’s “I Want” song, titled “How Far I’ll Go,” which is in a challenging minor key that I’ve literally never heard before from a children’s film. It’s a great soundtrack, except for maybe “You’re Welcome,” a solo number which Dwayne Johnson clumsily tumbles through like the Rock that is his namesake.

It’s a perfectly lovely film, even if it isn’t perfectly perfect. It has two charming leads, a solid theme about respecting the past and discovering who you are, and two perfectly horrifying monster designs that I guarantee some kid is having a nightmare about this very second. I have my problems with it (especially the introduction of the sentient ocean, which only deigns to help out Moana when the plot needs a deus ex machina), but I’ll definitely buy the soundtrack, which is the highest praise a Disney movie can ask for.

TL;DR: Moana is a serviceable animated adventure with a mostly great musical soundtrack.

Rating: 7/10

Word Count: 1077