Spoilers – definitely. If you haven’t seen this movie it is available on many streaming platforms.
This is a sequel to the first Jumanji movie and it is such a wonderful movie with a brilliant cast and was just as good if not better than the first Jumanji movie. I don’t know though. Robin Williams was pretty great in the first one.
This is our story – we all play Jumanji – all the time.
In 1996, teenager Alex Vreeke receives the original and cursed Jumanji board game after his father finds it while jogging on a beach, but puts it aside, noting that nobody plays board games anymore, instead playing a video game involving motorcycles.
God wants to play with you so he changes it so you will play. He updates it. Come on!! Let’s go play the game of life!!
Overnight, the game changes so that the box’s contents are now a video game cartridge, but when Alex puts it in his console and turns it on – he vanishes.
Twenty years later, high school student Spencer Gilpin is sent to detention for helping his former best friend, Anthony “Fridge” Johnson, with his homework by writing Fridge’s essays for him. Spencer is afraid of life, Anthony is afraid of his brain and not being popular,
They are joined by Bethany Walker, a beautiful girl who was caught talking on her phone during a quiz, and Martha Kaply, a socially awkward girl who objected to being made to participate in gym class. Bethany only has eyes for herself and Martha could give a caca what anyone thinks. She would love a boyfriend but doesn’t really give a caca.
For detention, they are charged by Principal Bentley with removing the staples from discarded magazines in an old storage area, but Spencer discovers the console containing the Jumanji game and convinces the others to play it with him. They are unable to access one of the five-player options, a pilot, but once all four others have been selected, the game draws them all inside it.
Your higher self is on a mission and he will entice you to come join him. He can’t be freed until you do so he will call to you to come help him. He will give you desires – to play the game. He helps you gain those desires but he teaches you about life as you do so you will free him one day.
Finding themselves in a jungle, all four are shaken to realize that they have become the avatars they chose for the game. Each one of us is an avatar for God playing the game of life with him. Love binds us and despite our differences we forget the ugly in life we saw and start to work as a team. They soon all discover the world of men is nice but being in love with living life is so much better. It comes down to you would give it all away, including your own life, if it would save another so they could live life. All for one and one for all.
Spencer finds himself turned into Dr. Smolder Bravestone, a muscular archaeologist. Fridge arrives into the game as Franklin “Moose” Finbar, an expert zoologist. We change to be what we wish and to face our fear. Spencer is afraid he is not big and strong. Fridge is afraid he is not smart and imaginative.
Fridge is upset that his avatar is a foot shorter than he normally is. Kevin Hart in his juju is hysterical.
Martha becomes Ruby Roundhouse, a beautiful dancing babe and “killer of men”. Martha fears no one will think she is pretty and want to be with her. She doesn’t believe she is coordinated enough to be good at sports.
Bethany is now Dr. Shelly Oberon, a cartographer that Bethany mistook for a woman because the description read “curvy genius” and she becomes horrified upon seeing her reflection. Bethany has been nothing but vain until now and has a perfect body. She is shocked and dismayed she is not only fat and round she is a man.
The four freak out as they realize they are inside the game. Almost immediately, Bethany is suddenly eaten by a hippopotamus that emerges from the river, but she swiftly reappears after falling out of the sky.
This is the story of us. We are thrown together with others who are not our family but become our family as we learn together. We discover we are in a game. The name were given is but an avatar for the one inside us to act out our thinking and feeling.
God’s in charge and he puts them into avatars they never dreamed they could be. We die and return but eventually we are told this is it – the game is ending for you. Finish.
Fleeing from a stampede of hippos, the group encounter Nigel, whose repetitive responses help Spencer identify him as an NPC (non-player character) who tells them that they have come to Jumanji in response to a letter Nigel wrote to Spencer’s avatar. The letter explains that Nigel was part of an expedition by explorer John Hardin Van Pelt to claim the legendary gem, the “Jaguar’s Eye” – the eye of God – removal of the gem from the large jaguar statue granting Van Pelt control over the animals of Jumanji.
In order to complete the game, the players must return the gem to the jaguar statue and call out “Jumanji”. For us to complete the game we must return to God, and call out Victory. Just as they stop the bad boys we too stop the bad boys by returning to love/life/God – we are the pearl – the gem.
With those instructions given, the group are dropped off outside a forest, where it is revealed that Bethany alone can read the map Nigel gave them, the map directing them to the next stage of their quest. Everyone has their own role to play – their own talent to share.
They are attacked by Van Pelt’s men on motorbikes, but manage to escape by fleeing through the trees and jumping off a cliff into a river. After emerging from the river, Martha realizes that she has been shot, but returns to the group immediately after her avatar explodes. They determine that the line tattoos on their forearms, which originally consisted of three bars, Martha and Bethany now only have two, Spencer realizes that these bars indicate the number of lives they have in the game, guessing that they will die for good, both in the game, and in the real world as well, once they lose all three lives.
There is a lot of the devil talking and walking and I don’t want to spoil it too much but it is great and exciting.
The fifth playable character introduces himself as the pilot Jefferson “Seaplane” McDonough, who says his real name is Alex. He leads them away from the danger.
Alex takes the four to a tree house that once belonged to Alan Parrish – Robin Williams character in the original.
He makes margaritas for the gang, and Fridge gets drunk. Alex mentions that he has been stuck in the game for months, and he hasn’t been able to get to the transportation shed to get himself out. Alex has used up two of his lives and been unable to progress further without the others due to his limited skills, but has identified the transport shed where they will acquire the means to move on. While Bethany teaches Martha how to flirt to distract the guards, Alex’s dated references lead Spencer and Fridge to realize that he is Alex Vreeke. Alex is shocked to learn that he has been trapped in the game for over twenty years. Although Alex suffers a panic attack, the team are able to gain access to the transport shed after Martha taps into her character’s strength of dance combat. Alex has been afraid to live – to give up that last life but Martha’s courage helps Alex recognize that they can complete the game by working together.
Put aside your BS and know all are on your team.
There is a brief panic when damage to the helicopter traps it in a canyon in front of a rampaging herd of white rhinoceros, but Spencer is able to repair the damage and help them ascend. Unfortunately, they lose the gem in the process when it falls out of Fridge’s backpack. Spencer is able to reclaim the gem after using Fridge as a ‘sacrifice’ to draw the rhino herd’s attention, subsequently ordering Alex to spin the helicopter in time to catch Fridge as he ‘respawns’. Needless to say Fridge is a bit upset. He had lives to spare in Spencer’s mind. It’s hysterical!
Once they land, Alex is stung by a mosquito and begins to die due to his avatar’s weakness, but Bethany saves him by giving him CPR, which passes one of her remaining lives to him. As they prepare for their next step, love starts to work it’s magic and Spencer and Martha admit that they have feelings for each other in the real world, while Bethany begins to bond with Alex.
Making their way to the jaguar statue, they find themselves confronted by actual jaguar guards, which cost Spencer one of his lives when he attempts to take the gem along the path to the statue alone. With Fridge’s support, Spencer implements a plan where Martha takes out Van Pelt’s approaching minions while the other three provide a distraction for the jaguars, leaving Spencer to take one of the minion’s motorbikes and continue to the statue.
Van Pelt represents the objective thinker and attempts to gain the advantage by taking Bethany hostage, but Fridge is able to drive the jaguar guards away by befriending an elephant, only for the players to lose the gem when it is thrown away. While the others distract Van Pelt’s minions, Spencer takes the bike to the top of the statue while Martha retrieves the gem from a pit full of snakes, using her character’s weakness to venom to sacrifice her second life and ‘respawn’ in a position where she can pass the gem to Spencer as she falls. With this action, Spencer places the gem in the statue and calls out “Jumanji!”, ending the game and restoring the jungle to peace. With this victory, Nigel appears to congratulate the group, shaking their hands and returning them to the real world.
We have adventures when we face our fears, when we begin to love, when we begin to love life. Then back to the old objective world but everything has changed now.
Back in the storage room, all four have returned to their true forms, but are saddened to find that Alex is not among them. As they walk home, they witness the Vreeke house – which had fallen into disrepair as Alex’s parents had no answer as to his fate – has been fully restored. As a car parks outside the house to release a family, the father sees the former players and confirms that he is Alex, who emerged from the game in 1996 and changed his history, also revealing that he named his eldest daughter after Bethany.
He honors the one who saved his life. Wish fulfilled. All is restored back – better than before. It’s perfect.
The following week at school, Spencer and Fridge are friends once again, and Bethany is making plans to go backpacking, while Spencer and Martha start dating. When they hear the drumbeats of Jumanji, they take the console out to the back of the school and Fridge drops a bowling ball onto it, each intending that this will end the game once and for all.
Yet Jumanji it is an allegory for the game of life. They all got their wishes, dreamed, started to believe they were that, acts of faith doing it, and some grew up – no longer vain and now loving life. All of it not just themselves.
At the end of the end credits, Jumanji’s menacing jungle drums play once again, suggesting the game still exists in some form to play another of its games.
It’s forever and day – God’s game. Life – so beautiful and the game is too in it’s own way.
Blessings to all!!
The Law & The Promise 