Jumanji: Welcome to The Jungle @ Movie 野蛮游戏：疯狂丛林

This is a reboot/sequel to my childhood nostalgia so I was worried when they announced the movie. As I have mentioned in my previous post, the movie using the name Jumanji has already set itself up for comparison to the 1995 version, which is a classic with an amazing performance from Robin Williams. I think I have sufficiently talk about the 995 version to death, so let's start this review already!

如果你的童年是在这部电影的前作中度过的话，那么这部续集是必看不可了。当年的野蛮游戏不只是在我心里留下痕迹，里面的剧情也让很多当年的同龄人留下阴影，因为感觉身边随时都会发生这些事情。

这是一部续集，我想也是一部延续我们未完的梦的一部电影。

(Poster took from MovieWeb)

This movie did not start right after the previous film left us, where we see the Jumanji washed up some beach with two girls speaking French. Instead it started in America, where the board game was discovered by a man who gave it to his son, Alex in 1996. Alex, of course was more interested in a video game than a board game and just put Jumanji on a shelf. Magically, the board game just transform itself into a video game to get the son to play it. Of course the game sucked the boy in and years passed before four other teenagers found the game while in detention.

Unlike the previous movie, the game did not release Alex or creatures from Jumanji. Instead it sucked them all in and every teenager became the avatar they chose, just like an actual video game. The story was interesting and funny as each teenager chose an avatar opposite to their real self so as the movie progresses, each of them grew to be more than what they were. Surprisingly, my favourite character was played by Jack Black. He played Bethany,a popular teenage girl stuck in an overweight middle-aged man as her avatar. Of course, the Rock and Kevin Hart were also hilarious. The jokes all had me laughing and there was never a moment where I was bored or thought that a joke was not funny. The movie had me smiling, laughing and cringing and it was glorious.

This movie poked fun at the video game genre, which I also loved. For example, Ruby Roudhouse wore revealing clothes in a jungle, which was not practical but the epitome of girl characters in video games. Besides that, there were NPC throughout the game that repeat its dialogue over and over again. There was also the fact that each avatar had a number of lives like in the video game and when they re-spawned, they would fall from the sky just like a video game. I also love the fact that each avatar had their own strength and weaknesses. Someone kind of spoiled the cake weakness for me, but it was still hilarious to see. By the way, the effects of eating cake would have been totally unexpected had someone did not spoiled it for me by blabbing. 

电影的开头就完完全全延续了前作的结尾，这让我开始有了期待。还记得当年被丢弃后的棋盘游戏怎么了吗？它飘到了海边，依然用着气势磅礴的鼓声吸引人来捡起它。电影就从这里开始，又有人捡起了它，又把它带回家了。

我很喜欢这样的处理方式，延续着前作的精神和设定，也让我觉得很合理。若要说不合理之处，那就是棋盘游戏本身了，它竟然会进化？！哦天啊，我根本没有想过这样的剧情。难道过几年如果又拍的话，那岂不是就进化成了手机的apps？我还以为它会是另一个出现的游戏。

这一次，它不再把深林里的动物带来现实世界，而是把人给带进去了。为了完成终极任务，并回到现实世界，主角们需要突破重重难关以及化解他们之间的分岔，因为只有合作才能发挥最大的效果，达到想要的目标。
这样故事情节是非常常见的，十个冒险故事里就有十个一样的剧情，而且结果也是预料之中的。因此，故事情节本身对我来说，并没有什么吸引力，我在此也不想多谈。

电影里的游戏规则和目标都很明确，也有所谓的NPC出来讲解或带路，就如我们玩的那种网络游戏。而且，这样的设定也有一定的笑果存在，因为NPC只会回答设置好的答案。

这部电影最让我喜欢的莫过于它与前作的链接了，除了片头，片中还提到了前作的主要人物呢！这瞬间勾起了我对前作的回忆。

As awesome as this movie was, it still could not compete to the 1995 Jumanji. I was slightly disappointed that we did not see creatures from the 1995 version, like the monkey, spiders and man-eating plants. I'm not asking for the bad CGI to come back, but it would have been nice to see the creatures in a more updated CGI version. Instead all we get was some lame ass jungle, that looked like a pretty normal looking jungle excluding the scary ass hippopotamus that ate Bethany in the beginning of the game. There is no longer the mystery or nervous feeling of reading some rhyme and trying to guess what is going to pop out. Instead we get a few rhymes here and there that was not as mysterious. The movie also rarely reference the 1995 movie. It mentioned Allan Parish (Robin William's character) in passing and had a bad guy with the name Van Pelt but he was a different guy and not a hunter anymore.

In addition to that, I find that they overused the drum sounds because there's like so many scenes where they play the sound of drums. I think it would have been better if the sound of the drums is confined to the real world when Jumanji is trying to get people to play it instead of becoming the background music for every upcoming crisis that warns the player that danger is coming. Although to be fair, there are video games that do just that. There was also the issue that if it was actually a video game, it was a pretty short video game. There wasn't much levels and the players went through it pretty fast. Before you guys lambaste me by saying the movie can't be too long, so they can't fit in a zillion levels. I agree that it would be impossible to fit a lot of level because of the restricted time. However, I feel like there wasn't as much events happening in this game like the previous movie. I feel like there were a lot of things happening in the previous movie and yet not too much. All in all, I feel like this movie would had not been judged as harsh had it not branded itself as Jumanji.

当然，这部电影也不是如此完美，它也有让我不满意的地方。
第一点就是电影整体的紧张感，我从开始到结尾都感觉不到太多的紧张感，而且任务的最后一关更是让我觉得这不是最后一关，因为真的完全没有紧张的感觉。电影里的坏人的镜头更是少得可怜，也让拥有特殊能力的他一点发挥也没有。如果非要比较的话，看预告片时感觉紧张多了。
最后的关卡应该是最紧张最刺激最热血的一个时候，除了打斗画面少，我也觉得编剧把剧情处理的很随便（或是说剪接不好？）。坏人终于抢到了宝石，这可是宝石被偷走后他第一次碰到宝石，可是就随随便便的被大象把宝石弄丢了。我有点傻眼，想说这到底是在演哪出，怎么坏人可以这么烂。

我对于配乐方面也有不满意之处。这次还是延续了那气势磅礴的鼓声，而每次鼓声响起，我们就知道一定会有事情发生。但是，还是一样没有紧张感！
我并不是想要比较，不过前作在配乐方面真的给了我们很多的紧张、期待、恐惧，每次念完诗句后，先会有声音出现，然后动物/人物才凭空出现。那种让你害怕着到底这次会出现什么的声音，的的确确让很多人都感到恐惧（尤其是当年还幼小的我们）。
总之，我真的全程都很平静的看完。

另外，有一个我以为会出现的人物居然没有出现！还记得那个在前作里在深林追着主角跑，并到了现实世界还在追着他跑的疯狂猎人吗？他在前作的结尾就回到了游戏里。
我以为这次会有他的出现，毕竟他是游戏里的人物啊，应该不会死去的吧。怎么没把他带来续集里呢？如果他为了某些原因而追着主角一群人跑的话，应该会很好笑，而且也会让很多粉丝感到怀念。

(Took from Heroic Hollywood)

This movie was stupid fun and I have to say I truly enjoyed this movie and would have no problem rewatching it again. It was fun, action-packed and just downright funny. I would definitely recommend you guys to watch this movie. If you watched it and enjoyed it, I would also recommend going back and watch the 1995 version if you haven not already.

虽然写了那么多的不满，但还是很推荐大家去看这部电影。在二十年前的年代里，这部电影的前作的剧情设定已经是非常前卫了。不过，随着时代的进步，人们对于感官上的享受也不同于过往。我们也慢慢习惯看些大场面和各个宇宙的故事，再也不向往这些“不科幻”的冒险故事。

总结来说，粉丝一定要去看；不是粉丝的，请为了前作去看，看完后就去找前作来看！