Around 18 months ago, the long-mooted Jumanji sequel – Jumanji: Welcome To The Jungle – surprised a whole bunch of people when it turned out to be a total joy. Jake Kasdan’s adventure-comedy was packed with fun set-pieces and major laughs, taking video-game logic and throwing in a ton of body-swap comedy. A sequel was quickly greenlit, and now we have Jumanji: The Next Level – a follow-up that goes back into the cursed video game, with some fun new twists.
If you worried that the last film used up all the good ideas, put those fears to bed – this time the avatars are getting different inhabitants, and it looks to be a massively fun time.
Yes that’s Danny DeVito now stuck in the body of Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson, and Danny Glover inhabiting the “small, muscular boy-scout” exterior of Kevin Hart. The two of them are on fire here –not literally, but that does sound like something they could face on re-entering the game – proving there’s plenty of mileage in those new character dynamics. Elsewhere there are glimpses of Awkwafina, who joins the cast afresh, as well as the return of Nick Jonas, Alex Wolff (hail Paimon), and the rest of the last film’s young cast.
It’s a supremely confident first trailer – and it has to be. Following the surprise hit of Welcome To The Jungle, The Next Level will be hitting screens in the same month as Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker. Now that is a flex worthy of Dwayne Johnson’s astonishingly huge muscles. Find out who wins in the war between the Jedi and the avatars (no, not the blue space-cat ones) when Jumanji: The Next Level hits UK cinemas on 20 December