Jumanji: The Next Level

Nicole Martin

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May 14, 2021
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Disclaimer: This article consists of spoilers in the movie “Jumanji: The Next Level.”

You are in a jungle. Drops of sweat roll down your face as you try to remember where you are and how you got there. You see large animals in the distance–animals that you have never seen before. It is now time to find a way out. For the characters in “Jumanji: The Next Level,” this experience is not out of the ordinary. 

“It [“Jumanji: The Next Level”] was pretty funny, but it was not as action-packed,” Lillian Derenthal, sophomore, said. 

In the first movie of this series, four high school students stuck in detention find an old video game console. When starting the game, they get swept into the virtual world and must embark on a journey to escape. In the second movie, Spencer, one of the main characters, misses the way he felt in the game, and becomes self conscious in the real world. In an attempt to regain the feeling of his fantasy character’s body, he plugs the game in again. When his friends realize that he is missing, they jump into the game to find him. Only this time, Spencer’s grandpa, Eddie, and Eddie’s old friend, Milo, get swept into the game, leaving Bethany, another main character, behind. Chaos ensues because Eddie and Milo had never experienced the game before and do not know what to expect.

To make the experience even more difficult, the group is placed into the bodies of different characters than they had in their first adventure. The rest of the movie focuses on them trying to get used to the unusual strengths and weaknesses of their video game characters while also trying to find Spencer and end the game. 

Not everyone enjoyed the series. Many people were not impressed enough by the first movie to watch the second one. Some who watched the first movie found it funny, but they did not see enough of a plot to see the next part of the story.

“I thought it [the first ‘Jumanji’ movie] was funny, but I didn’t see the second one because going to the movies is expensive, and even though I thought it was good, I didn’t think it was worth spending money again,” Emilie Dudgeon, junior, said.

Now fans are waiting to see if there will be a third “Jumanji” movie.