At long last I’ve watched Jumanji 2, and been more than a little disappointed with it. The story lacks depth, I think. Doing an actual tv series would have fleshed the story out a lot more, taking just the basic concept of (four) people getting sucked into a virtual reality game. Making all four of those people teenagers the same age who entered the game at the same time – that’s a definite mistake, too. Jumanji 2 turned out to be a high school chick flick, utterly predictable and one I would not rewatch, a far cry from Jumanji 1 which had powerful themes of human-ness running through. Jumanji 1, I must have rewatched 10 times in my childhood. I especially loved the bit where the little guy’s monkey tail being stuck in his trousers was bothering him and he was too ashamed to mention it until late. That little detail is brilliant film directing in itself.
Anyway, crappy Jumanji 2 inspired me to wordsmith as follows. In hindsight, I should probably have rewritten the whole plot as if I’d not seen Jumanji 2 at all, since I don’t think that particular storyline would be interesting even if you lengthened it out into a tv series. Maybe next time!
Time taken: 1.5 hours
Research done: None
Jumanji: Relived
A new HBO series
The re-adaptation of the much- loved novel, Jumanji, starts with four very different teenagers being forced into detention together. The first episode has the protagonist, Fish, discovering a dusty game console and powering it on, transporting himself directly into the virtual realm of the game together with his classmates-turned-teammates. All four take on the bodies and attributes of game characters. Fish, the real- life nerd, turns into Bravebroom, a hulk who fights incredibly well with household objects, his weapons of choice being a plain metal saucepan and a 100,000 watt cordless vacuum. The objects originate from the bottom of a backpack belonging to his nemesis, now sidekick, Asher, who has diminished from his sporty six- foot stature to become the tiny, wheezing five-foot Midget with extensive knowledge in the mechanics of artificial intelligence. As the team travel through the virtual landscape, Bravebroom and Midget concentrate their efforts on physically and mentally hacking through incessant hordes of steely robots, while the other two personas, Scarlett and Yorha, utilise their feminine charms and navigational skills respectively. Early game ends with the return of a jewel into the eye of a marble panther and the release of one of the earliest trapped prisoners within Jumanji, but layers of reality run deep within the decades- old “entertainment”, who has secretly managed to connect to the global internet and generate new levels with its downloaded knowledge. Enter Lorelei, the gifted I.T. student who happens across the connection while browsing on his home computer. Able to track gameplay in real- time simultaneously while examining Jumanji’s source code, Lorelei must guide the four characters through the constantly changing levels by leaving obvious clues, essential equipment and spare supplies. Would the four humans succumb all their lives to their characters’ weaknesses, or would Lorelei run into an unsolvable bug and crash the program forever? For now, the drums of Jumanji thud on, and the game continues…
Grams of Charm 