New 'Jumanji' movie thrills audiences
- By Zhang Rui
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E-mail China.org.cn, December 9, 2019
The new "Jumanji" movie takes audiences on a thrilling ride of action and adventure.
The original movie featuring the nightmarish game "Jumanji" is something nostalgic and marked a milestone for the Chinese audience. Directed by Joe Johnston and starring the late Robin Williams, the film was the first visual effects fantasy blockbuster widely enjoyed by Chinese across the nation. The then conservative Chinese market just established a system in 1994 to allow imports of such Hollywood blockbusters for wide release in theaters across the country.
Twenty-two years later, "Jumanji" got a reboot. Columbia Pictures made "Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle," which film critics called "a pleasant surprise."Facing overwhelming pressure from "Star Wars: The Last Jedi." which was released during the same period, "Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle" went on to gross US$404.6 million in North America and a total of US$962.1 million worldwide. This included 491 million yuan (US$78 million) in ticket sales from China where it was released one month later than other markets.
"I think audiences responded so positively to our first Jumanji movie for a few reasons. I think that it was fun, it had a ton of heart, and it was a surprise," the film's star and producer, Dwayne Johnson said. With revenues exceeding US$10 billion worldwide for all his films including "The Fast and the Furious" installments, Johnson proved to be a global box-office powerhouse with incomparable charm. "But, I also think we went into our movie with tremendous reverence, love, and respect for the franchise and the original movie with Robin Williams, whom we all loved and honored as best as we possibly could. And I think that was a fundamental element about our movie that resonated with audiences around the world."
The sequel went forward due to both the box office triumph and positive reviews. In February 2018, it was announced that Jake Kasdan would direct the sequel, with script writers and cast members reprising their roles in "Jumanji: The Next Level."Filming of the new Jumanji movie began in January 2019.
"The first movie was about what it means to understand who you are, and to throw your arms around everything you are capable of," producer Matt Tolmach said, "The thing about life is that we change all the time and so does the game. The game is upping the challenge, and the characters are changing."
Director Jake Kasdan said the opportunity to revisit this idea and the characters - both the kids in the real world and their avatars in the game - was "irresistible" to him. "But the great gift of this story is that we could bring everybody back, get the team back together, but also change what everyone was doing. And that makes it all new again. It allowed us to reapply the big idea, but in a really different way," he said.
"Jumanji: The Next Level" reunites the four teenagers who survived the trials of "Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle" as they return home from their respective colleges for their holiday break. Now college students, they're trying to navigate the next level in their individual lives. After the main character Spencer Gilpin is compelled to go back into the game, Martha Kaply, Anthony "Fridge" Johnson and Bethany Walker must team up and re-enter the world of Jumanji on a daring rescue mission to bring Spencer home.
But it is not quite the same gang of four. Two older men, Spencer's grandfather Eddie along with his estranged friend and former business partner Milo Walker, are also sucked into the game. They take over two of the four avatars that once belonged to the four teenagers, which makes things even more hilarious. What's more, Awkwafina, the popular American actress of Chinese descent also known as Nora Lum, will play the new avatar of Ming, a master burglar. Together, they would fight the new villain in this round of the game, Jurgen the Brutal, played by Rory McCann.
"One of the things that's happening in the movie is that the characters are not necessarily showing up in the same avatars as in the first movie. And there's just an inherent level of comedy in that. It's like 'I was accustomed to being in this absurd body before, it became normal and now I'm in this new body?'The idea of Jumanji is that it places you in the game in an avatar in order to show you something about yourself, and that itself can be very entertaining," Tolmach pointed out.
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