REVIEW: Jumanji: The Next Level [2019]

Wherever they may be. The first cinematic adaptation of Chris Van Allsburg‘s Jumanji brought the board game’s wild jungle environment to its players’ quiet suburbia for a crazy survival adventure. Jake Kasdan and company could have easily done the exact same thing again with their reboot/sequel hybrid Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle due to over twenty years having past since its predecessor’s release, but they chose to breathe new life into the property instead. And it worked beautifully to earn critical, creative, and financial success. They revamped board and dice…

Read More

REVIEW: Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle [2017]

Find the missing piece. The end of Jumanji shows Alan and Sarah chaining up the board game before throwing it over a bridge into water. Later we see it washed ashore on a beach, buried in the sand with chains removed as people walk by speaking what sounds like French. So we wonder how long after the main plot this Planet of the Apes ending is set. Did it cross the Atlantic? There’s real fun to this abstract epilogue with infinite possibilities, especially since the unlikely sequel Jumanji: Welcome to…

Read More

REVIEW: Captain America: The First Avenger [2011]

“Star-spangled man with a plan” Not having been someone who read comics as a kid, I am definitely in the dark on the inner-workings of the Marvel universe. Everyone has a cursory knowledge of DC’s greats and I’m not quite sure why that is. Batman and Superman are household names, their powers and origin tales part of pop culture lexicon, so why is it I knew nothing about Stan Lee’s equivalent to man’s favorite Kryptonian? Why do we intrinsically know an alien savior, but not the red-blooded American donning our…

Read More

REVIEW: Jumanji [1995]

“Til the dice read five or eight” If asked who my favorite illustrator was growing up, I’d always reply Chris Van Allsburg. My elementary school years in Florida saw our librarian reading us many of his lusciously detailed books and I fell in love with the paintings as well as the stories. So when I saw that Jumanji had been made into a film, I was very excited. I think I really had fun watching it back in 1995 and revisiting it today kept a lot of that childish enjoyment…

Read More