When JUMANJI: WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE swung into theaters two years ago, it became a surprise hit with both critics and audiences, raking in over $950 million worldwide at the box office. Not surprisingly, a sequel was quickly announced and now we have a brand new trailer for the follow-up film JUMANJI: THE NEXT LEVEL. And guys there's ostriches! LOTS of ostriches.
In the last film, four high school students, Spencer (Alex Wolff), Fridge (Ser'Darius Blain), Martha (Morgan Turner), and Bethany (Madison Iseman) were all sucked into the videogame Jumanji. The four were assigned individual avatars with various strengths and weaknesses and by joining together were able to unite and escape the game. You'd think that after a misadventure like that, they'd be smart enough to leave well enough alone but you'd be wrong.
In the sequel, "Unknown to his friends, Spencer kept the pieces of the Jumanji video game and one day repaired the system in the basement of his grandfather's house. When Spencer's friends Bethany, Fridge, and Martha arrive, they find Spencer missing and the game running and decide to re-enter Jumanji to save him. Spencer's grandfather Eddie and his friend Milo Walker hear the commotion and inadvertently get sucked into the game too before any of Spencer's friends can select their avatars. With a new quest offered to them by Nigel Billingsley, the teenaged friends must help Eddie and Milo get used to their in-game avatars, get them to help find Spencer, and escape Jumanji once again and for all."
Both Kevin Hart and Dwayne Johnson's individual impressions of Eddie (Danny DeVito) and Milo (Danny Glover) in this trailer are dead on. I mean they are like scary accurate. It will be interesting to see if their personas stay sufficiently funny through the entire film or if it quickly grows tiresome. Regardless, it's nice to see JUMANJI: THE NEXT LEVEL isn't just rehashing the same actors with their same avatars. Mixing it up and setting the film in the jungle as well as the desert seems promising. While I didn't catch the last film in theaters, this movie looks like it's a rollicking good time full of laughs and plenty of action.
JUMANJI: THE NEXT LEVEL is directed by Jake Kasdan and stars Dwayne Johnson, Jack Black, Karen Gillan, Kevin Hart, Danny DeVito, Danny Glover, Nick Jonas, and Rhys Darby and stampedes its way into theaters December 13.