Beating drums resonated off the walls of the movie theatre as the new version of Jumanji appeared to have taken a similar theme as the original. However, after the opening scene it was very clear that these drums would be one of the only similarities. The original film focused more on Robin Wilson,a character that had become trapped in the Jumanji game, while the reboot aims the spotlight briefly at Nick Jonas who played a similar character, but he wasn’t a focal point. The players of the game in the new movie were four very diverse teenagers compared to the older version which included only two young players. These teenagers normally wouldn’t have acknowledged each other which made tensions high in the beginning, however their differences were slowly sorted out as the game progressed.

Spencer was a scrawny teen in real life who, when transported into the game, was shocked by his new size and played by the actor Dwayne Johnson. Fridge, a tall and buff football jock, was transported into the game as the actor Kevin Hart which was hilarious because he was a little back-talking man that always had something to say. Tom Sucher enjoyed this shift because Fridge’s reaction to his new body size was “I’m missing the top two feet of my body.” The timid Martha became a buttkicking redhead who was extremely awkward in her new body type. Lastly, my personal favorite went to Bethany  ,the snobby girl who couldn’t go anywhere without her phone. Instead of changing into the expected girl character, she transformed into an “overweight middle-aged man” and as a result, every word that came out of the actor Jack Black’s mouth had to sound girly and dramatic. This difference of having the characters go into the game was huge because the original movie brought the game to the players.

When watching the movie I was surprised to see this dramatic change which made the actors go into the game however, I liked it. Another factor that I enjoyed was that players didn’t take turns. Instead of having to wait in suspense after every disaster that took place for the right player to make a move, every player had three lives and multiple weaknesses. While some had reasonable weaknesses like venom and endurance, Fridge’s flaw was cake. The relevance was executed in a hilarious manner which included a lot of complaints and it was evident that Fridge was going to lose one of his three lives from this dessert. When it happened, he exploded. This ridiculous death occurred as a result of Bethany forgetting the taste of cake and telling Fridge that the ‘bread’ was ok for him to ingest.

When the movie came out, I was expecting a more serious and intense film. Even though it was intense, the movie wasn’t even close to being serious. Comedic parts were heavily interspersed throughout the movie and ranged from terrible flirting attempts, gross but hilariously sloppy first kisses, and man eating hippos. Overall, this amusing movie had me constantly laughing and blew my expectations away with the comedic twist that I wasn’t expecting.