When Sony Pictures announced its plans to make Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, audiences and the industry were not optimistic.
Jumanji, starring Robin Williams in 1995, grossed and acclaimed. The Jumanji game in the movie resembles the all-popular Monopoly, and with the refreshing computer special effects of the time, it tells a story that breaks the dimensional wall and travels through time and space. It also implants the core of family and life choices, and has deep meaning in addition to sensory stimulation.
Fast forward more than twenty years, the world of chess and cards has long given way to electronic online games. Robin Williams died of depression, and Brave Game became one of the most memorable laughs left by the unhappy comedian. Before Brave Games: Battle jungle, another movie not named "Jumanji," Zathura: A Space Adventure, tried to replicate the glory of Brave Games. Yet this film that showcases the wonders of space has not surpassed Game of Braves in terms of visuals, narrative, or core. "Cinnabar moles" and "mosquito blood" are in front of us, and whether Brave Games: Decisive Jungle can complete a satisfactory answer sheet is a question that has been hanging in people's minds since the beginning of filming.
When the brave game: Decisive Jungle crew came to China to promote it, this question was already answered. In the North American Christmas slot, the film starring Dawn Johnson and Karen Gillan has grossed strongly at the box office, and is currently in its more than three weeks of release, grossing $244 million in North America. In the third weekend of the film's release, "Brave Games: Battle jungle" surpassed "Star Wars 8" that dominated the chart for three weeks with a weekend box office of $36 million, becoming the North American box office champion. After its release on January 12 in Chinese mainland, the film is expected to gross $700 million worldwide. On several benchmark websites, this "popcorn movie" also has a good reputation: IMDB score of 7.3, Rotten Tomatoes 77% freshness. Critics even argue that Dawn Johnson, the "rock" who has always been an action star, showed outstanding comedic talent in this film, breaking the stereotyped mode of work.
Playing the comedy card is perhaps one of the wisest choices for this sequel. The film sought out Jack Cassdan, a comedic director who had co-directed "Freaks and Nerds." Twenty years later, Yumangi is no longer a flying chess piece, but a real-life immersive game with a gamepad operation. It is still breaking the dimensional wall, still the interaction of two worlds, but this time, it is not a few children, but 15 or 6-year-old high school students. Jack Cassdan's use of plot to deconstruct video games not only makes the audience laugh, but also makes traditional adventure films suddenly revitalized. Instead of continuing the discussion of family affection in his first work more than twenty years ago, he turned to the characterization of adolescence: otaku and otaku were not confident in themselves, school flowers were arrogant and arrogant and never cared about others, and sports students also did whatever they wanted. What kind of changes will occur in personality and psychology when people with very different personalities have fate entanglements?
In an interview, director Jack Kasdan said: "It's a very interesting idea for kids to be sucked into video games, to go into a different body and experience a very different life. I think a lot of people have imagined what it would be like if they could live in someone else's body for a day. This is how our four characters in this movie start a very fantastic journey. ”
As a small group of four people, the matching of the aura between the actors is particularly important. The strong muscles of "Rock" Dawn Johnson and the big legs of "Nebula" Karen Gillan in Guardians of the Galaxy stand together like unreal virtual game characters. The school flower becomes the uncle played by Jack Blake, and all kinds of contrasts contract most of the laughs in the movie.
While always playing heroes on screen, Dawn Johnson said the film's character is still completely new to himself: "I've never played a character in a game before, and he has a lot of power. For example, I can hit people directly into the ceiling, or push people directly 100 feet away, so I have to learn a lot of new skills and fights. But I didn't have much karen Gillan to learn, and one of her killer skills in the movie was dancing. ”
Before becoming a game character, Spencer was a 16-year-old boy with little sense of security and frequent allergies. Because of this film, Dawn Johnson also recalls his teenage years. "At that time, I was very insecure, always trying to pretend to be cool, but always causing trouble. So playing this role is very interesting, it's a very interesting challenge, because in fact you are playing two roles, one is a very timid 16-year-old boy, and the other is still similar to a superhero, he has no weaknesses, he is very confident. During filming, Dawn Johnson consulted with the director on whether to design an interesting skill for the characters in the game, and eventually the "Low Eye Kill" became part of the game's skill.
He doesn't deny the pressure at the beginning of the role: both from the character itself and from the popular previous game. "We all love Brave Game very much, and we made this film with a very sincere intention, but we still carry a lot of pressure. When the movie came out, one of the best reviews I heard was, 'If Robin Williams had seen the movie, he would have loved it too'. ”
Brave Games: Battle jungle has no shortage of classic homage to the forward: players are decomposed and sucked into the game, canyon rhinos rampage, game leader setting... The film also features a boy who has been trapped in the game for 20 years and eventually returns to the real world with the help of four teenagers. Compared to Brave Games, which taught children to love their families more than two decades ago, Brave Games: Battle jungle is more like an advanced adolescent growth lesson. Suffering together, accepting their imperfections, and learning to think for others is a lesson that Jungle Adventure taught four teenagers, and it is also the final sublimation of the movie "Brave Game: Decisive Jungle".