Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle was a huge success back in 2017, grossing nearly $1 billion at the box office despite going head to head with Star Wars: The Last Jedi.
The direct sequel to Robin Williams's 1995 classic ended with a gag that saw the Jumanji game destroyed, seemingly ruling out a sequel. However, it's not exactly a surprise that Jumanji: The Next Level has arrived two years later after the sequel proved so successful.
In lesser hands, it could have been a cynical move. But while Jumanji: The Next Level is certainly a bit too similar to the previous movie, there's enough good-natured fun and body-swapping hijinks here to satisfy the fans.
Unknown to his friends, Spencer (Alex Wolff) kept the broken Jumanji game after Fridge (Ser'Darius Blain) destroyed it. Spencer is struggling a bit with life and his relationship with Martha (Morgan Turner), so he decides to head back into the game.
When his friends discover what he's done, they're left with no choice but to head back into the perilous game. This time though, they'll have company in the form of Spencer's grandfather Eddie (Danny DeVito) and his friend Milo (Danny Glover).
Faced with a dangerous new mission in a Jumanji that is unlike their expectations, the players have to find Spencer and complete the quest in order to escape the game once more.
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You generally expect a sequel to follow a similar pattern to a previous movie, especially one that worked so well. Jumanji: The Next Level takes this a bit too closely to heart, essentially delivering the same structure as before with only minor tweaks.
That's a tad disappointing given that the scope was there to reinvent the Jumanji game, using the basis that it's been broken, so might not function properly. It seems to be the way they're going when Nigel Billingsley (Rhys Darby) arrives in an aeroplane, not a truck, and drops the players in a whole new area. Yet soon the story is back on (overly) familiar ground as their mission begins.
It's all the more noticeable because The Next Level even repeats the same gags and set pieces as Welcome to the Jungle. Sometimes there's a bit of meta commentary to it, but often it just takes the concept of giving the fans what they want too literally.
Fortunately, like with Welcome to the Jungle, the strength of The Next Level lies in its four main leads. Dwayne Johnson, Karen Gillan, Kevin Hart and Jack Black all get to flex their body-swapped muscles again, not all of them in familiar roles, as the movie takes the body-swapping to the next level (sorry, not sorry).
There's the added bonus of seeing Johnson play a pitch-perfect and hilarious take on Danny DeVito, and best of the bunch is Hart's wonderfully measured Glover impression, which steals every scene.
It's in this body-swapping that the movie really clicks and offers something new, especially when Awkwafina – playing a new avatar in the game – gets involved and an unexpected development is thrown into the mix.
As in Welcome to the Jungle, the broad and often silly humour sometimes meshes uneasily with some fairly violent (if not gory) deaths.
However, director Jake Kasdan avoids making the sequel 'darker' and it's not long before a knockabout action sequence – an ostrich car chase is an early highlight – or some body-swapping hijinks lighten the mood.
One aspect that the sequel improves on the previous movie is in the realm of emotion. The reveal about Nick Jonas's avatar Jefferson McDonough was touching in Welcome to the Jungle, but The Next Level succeeds it to deliver some real heart among the videogame antics.
That it happens between two characters while they're in the bodies of avatars just speaks to the skill of all involved.
All in all, Jumanji: The Next Level is a hugely likeable and consistently entertaining follow-up, even if its overfamiliarity lets it down somewhat. Fans of Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle won't be bothered by more of the same, so Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker had better watch out.
Jumanji: The Next Level is in cinemas now.
Director: Jake Kasdan; Starring: Dwayne Johnson, Karen Gillan, Madison Iseman, Awkwafina, Jack Black, Nick Jonas; Running time: 123 minutes; Certificate: 12A
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Movies Editor, Digital Spy Ian has more than 10 years of movies journalism experience as a writer and editor. Starting out as an intern at trade bible Screen International, he was promoted to report and analyse UK box-office results, as well as carving his own niche with horror movies, attending genre festivals around the world. After moving to Digital Spy, initially as a TV writer, he was nominated for New Digital Talent of the Year at the PPA Digital Awards. He became Movies Editor in 2019, in which role he has interviewed 100s of stars, including Chris Hemsworth, Florence Pugh, Keanu Reeves, Idris Elba and Olivia Colman, become a human encyclopedia for Marvel and appeared as an expert guest on BBC News and on-stage at MCM Comic-Con. Where he can, he continues to push his horror agenda – whether his editor likes it or not.
