Jumanji: The Next Level review: Fails to live up to its surprising predecessor

The sequel does get close to matching the charms of the first film – but only in the final reel, when you can sense the credits about to roll

Dir: Jake Kasdan. Cast: Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart, Jack Black, Karen Gillan, Nick Jonas, Awkwafina, Danny Glover, Danny DeVito. 12A cert, 123 mins

The first Jumanji sequel came as a surprise to everyone. Released in 2017, Welcome to the Jungle was a remake of a Nineties family classic with a shaky premise (swapping the original’s board game for an equally old school video game cartridge), yet it managed to feel both fresh and funny. It was an ideal piece of counterprogramming to a festive season dominated by Star Wars: light and easy, if ultimately forgettable. With an elephant-sized gross of $962m at the worldwide box office, it was guaranteed we’d be seeing more of Dwayne Johnson and his adventuring pals.

Jumanji: The Next Level doesn’t have even a vague frisson of surprise. That it takes place in a video game means it’s weighed down by a need to trace the same contours of its predecessor. There are levels to be conquered, set skills to be taken advantage of. The quartet of teen friends from the first film – two nerds (Alex Wolff’s Spencer and Morgan Turner’s Martha), a jock (Ser’Darius Blain’s Fridge), and a popular girl (Madison Iseman’s Bethany) – have all graduated school. Some have gone off to college, others taken a gap year. But their planned reunion during the Christmas break goes awry when Spencer somehow resurrects the Jumanji game and goes missing inside – and his friends must head off in search of him.

Yet there are two unexpected passengers on this ride. Spencer’s grandfather Eddie (Danny DeVito) and his old friend Milo (Danny Glover) inadvertently get sucked into the game. This time, no one gets to choose their avatars: Eddie and Milo end up in the bodies of Dr Smolder Bravestone (Johnson) and Franklin “Mouse” Finbar (Kevin Hart). And thus we arrive at the film’s main joke, as two actors in their prime run around pretending to be pensioners. In many scenes, it’s the only joke there is. There are cries of “what in tarnation!” and rambling stories about some nephew who’s now a veterinarian. Hart, at least, gets the physicality right. His entire face scrunches up, as if he’s trying to read a specials board on the other side of a restaurant. Johnson is pretty much Johnson, but with a scratchy New Jersey accent.

What’s most frustrating about The Next Level is the way it so routinely wastes the talents of its cast. In the first film, Karen Gillan’s Ruby Roundhouse worked as a clever subversion of the sexy action femme bot. Here, all she does is deliver exposition and perform cartwheels. Jack Black is, essentially, asked to do an impression of a black teenager. The results are as awkward (and teetering dangerously close to offensive) as you’d expect.

And then there’s Awkwafina, playing a new avatar – a thief called Ming Fleetfoot. At first, she’s given almost nothing to do. But in the film’s third act she swoops in and steals the show from underneath everybody else’s feet. Displaying impeccable comic timing, she also lands the emotional beats with ease – as she did in this year’s The Farewell. In fact, Jumanji: The Next Level does get close to matching the charms of the first film – but only in the final reel, when you can sense the credits about to roll. By then it’s already game over.

Jumanji: The Next Level is released in UK cinemas on 11 December