By Zach Hyatt and Ryan Woods – Staff Reporters

“Jumanji,” released on December 20, 2017, is an adventure-comedy film directed by Jake Kasdan. The main protagonist in this film is Spencer Gilpin, played by Alex Wolff, and his avatar, Dr. Smolder Bravestone, played by Dwayne Johnson. The antagonist is Russel Van Pelt, played by Bobby Cannavale.

The plot of the movie is that Spencer and his friends get detention and have to clean up the school basement, where they find an old video game called “Jumanji.” They turn on the video game, and everyone chooses their players, and then it starts to malfunction. They end up getting sucked into the game, and each person is the character that they chose. After finding out that they are in the game, they meet a guy named Nigel Billingsly, played by Rhys Darby. This man tells the players to find the Jaguar’s Eye, climb to the top of the jaguar statue, put the eye back, and call out “Jumanji.”

Spencer and his friends realize what they have to do, but it’s dangerous. If they die three times in the game, they die in real life. So they go through each level as careful as possible until they reach a shopping center where they get ambushed. Dr. Bravestone holds his own, but they get saved by a mysterious guy who sneaks them off to be able to get to the next level. Meanwhile, Alex thinks he has only been stuck in the game for a couple of months and everyone, including him, is shocked to realize he has been there for two decades. They all make it their mission to get him back home.

This movie really keeps people hooked because the director implements comedy into dramatic scenes. Another reason why this is a solid movie is that it feels and looks as if they actually are in a video game, with the NPC dialogue and the tattoos on their wrists indicating the amount of lives they have left.

But there are some rough patches in this movie as well. To start, there were very predictable scenes and elements in the movie. They also rely on comedy throughout the movie, when some of the scenes won’t please the audience.

Overall, “Jumanji” is a fun action movie that mixes adventure and comedy well. Even with a few predictable parts, it’s still a great movie that lots of people enjoy watching even years after release.

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars