Jumanji: The Next Level - I think this franchise is going stale

The problem facing Jumaji isn't just that the films are a very predictable mix of assured victory with 5 or 6 CGI events that are probably dazzling on the big screen and otherwise is a story almost completely devoid of any substance. The problem is that the various "episodes" are essentially the same film. You could splice the 2 existing modern-day episodes together for someone that has never seen either and I don't think they would even notice the difference.

The Next Level is probably entertaining for some people, but for me it is already a boring concept that doesn't really inspire me to rush to the theater to see it.

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I don't think I really need to tell anyone what this film is about because pretty much everyone is already aware of what is going on here. A video game sucks some teens into a fantasy world where they take on characters in the video game and they have a certain amount of "lives" just like you would in a real game. If they fail to make it to the end, the idea is that they will be forever stuck inside the game until someone comes to rescue them... which is kind of the only reason The Next Level has for existing.

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The locations where they shot this film are extraordinary, there is no denying that and it is one of the film's strengths. I was surprised to find out that all of the locations are actually located in North America and for some reason that was impressive to me and also made me feel as though I need to get out there a bit and perhaps explore a bit more of my own country instead of aspiring to go abroad - which is lucky because it seems to be the global opinion that we are not going to be allowed to go anywhere anytime soon.

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It should surprise no one that a majority of the action was filmed on a green screen because I can't really imagine being able to train 200 baboons or giant, non-existent ostriches to attack some dune buggies. I guess you could say that the action is pretty impressive during these parts of the movie and their relatively massive CGI budget saw to it that this was the real centerpiece of the film.

The shortcomings of the film are that the story itself is rather irrelevant and I think that anyone over the age of 5 is very aware of what the end result is going to be: Victory.

Of course this film made something crazy like $600 million in the global box-office take and even though I think Jumanji, and films like it, are precisely what is wrong with American cinema, it's difficult to argue with the financial benefits of these types of films and is also why we are probably very likely to see more and more of them.

Should I watch it?

It depends: If you enjoy empty action-fests the likes of Transformers and most of the Marvel films then I would say this is probably your cuppa, but for people expecting some sort of actual story or emotion to be mixed in with an $80 million special effects budget than this will probably not appeal to you. There is a reason why I ignored it when it was released in theaters despite the fact that I am (was) a regular cinema attendee and didn't bother to torrent it. If it hadn't been featured on the Netflix main page, I likely never would have watched it.

I suppose it would be good to watch with the kids but mostly this movie was boring to me despite the almost non-stop action.