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Jumanji:

Welcome to the Jungle

By Yanique Apgar, Contributing Writer

03/20/2018

Chris Van Allsburg's children's book “Jumanji”  in 1981 was so significant, that it still remained in the present. Jake Kasdan's movie “Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle,” mirrors the book where teenagers find a mysterious game and eventually get sucked into it and become the characters they chose.

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The movie starts out with four teenagers Spencer, Bethany, Fridge and Martha, who get to know each other by sharing detention. They were instructed to clean the school’s basement and found a mysterious console. Once they started playing the Jumanji game, all four picked an avatar and got sucked into the game’s jungle. Soon they realized that they only have three lives, and in order to return they must finish the game. Spencer is a muscular explorer played by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Bethany is an overweight, middle aged man played by Jack Black, Fridge is a short zoologist played by Kevin Hart and Martha (Karen Gillan) plays an extremely attractive martial arts expert. To escape the game, they must return the Jaguar's Eye Jewel to the Jaguar Statue and call out the games name.

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The challenge is that Russel Van Pelt who’s a big game hunter, wants to obtain the jewel to manipulate Jumanji’s animals. On the journey the finish the game, the four start losing lives through various encounters due to the difficulty change after completing a level. After facing all the levels they finally arrived the the Jaguar Statue. They now have to encounter Van Pelt’s jaguar guards in order to return to reality. Using their last resources, some of the team distracts Van Pelt and his jaguars, while Spencer and Martha try to return the jewel. At this point all players have only one life remaining as they call out the game’s name and beat the last level. After calling out Jumanji, Van Pelt transforms into rats and all four return to the real world.

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After returning to reality, Spencer and Fridge become friends, Martha started dating Spencer, Bethany started to treat people nicer and works on becoming a better person. The four are now friends after sharing life threatening events from the game. The ending scene includes all four standing behind their school, where Fridge destroys the game with a bowling ball they found.

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Jumanji was great comedy and worth watching. The movie succeeds by not trying to make it even close to the original. Even though there are many similarities, the movie stands out due to its cast and originality. Hart and The Rock have had many great movies and success, which adds a lot value to the movie. “Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle” was first screened in December of 2017 and is still in the theaters.

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