Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle is a 2017 action film starring Dwayne Johnson, Jack Black, Kevin Hart, Karen Gillan, Nick Jonas and Bobby Cannavale, directed by Jake Kasdan, written by Chris McKenna, Erik Sommers, Scott Rosenberg and Jeff Pinkner, based on the story by McKenna, the book Jumanji and story for Jumanji by Chris Van Allsburg, the screenplay and story for Jumanji by Greg Taylor and Jim Strain and the screenplay for Jumanji by Jonathan Hensleigh and produced by William Teitler and Matt Tolmach.
Plot
In 1996 in Brantford, New Hampshire, teenager Alex Vreeke receives the Jumanji board game which was found by his father on a beach after it was thrown over a bridge by Alan Parrish and Sarah Whittle 27 years earlier. Alex sets the game aside. That night, it transforms into a video game cartridge which catches Alex's attention when he is awakened by the Jumanji drums and he is transported into the game.
Twenty years later, in 2016, four Brantford High School students serve detention: Spencer Gilpin, caught writing an essay for former friend Anthony "Fridge" Johnson (also in detention); Bethany Walker, who made a video call during an English-class quiz and Martha Kaply, who refused to participate in gym class. They are sent to the school basement to prepare magazines for recycling and to think about their future. Fridge discovers Alex's discarded video-game system when he explores the basement, and he and Spencer set up the game. Although it has five playable characters, the first one cannot be selected. Spencer and Fridge choose two characters, and the girls choose their own. When Spencer presses "Start", they are transported into the game.
They are in a jungle, in the forms of their game avatars. Spencer is tough, muscular explorer and archaeologist Smolder Bravestone; Fridge is diminutive zoologist Franklin "Mouse" Finbar, whom he chose after misreading "Mouse" as "Moose"; Bethany is chubby male cartographer and intellectual Sheldon "Shelly" Oberon (whose nickname she mistook for a woman's), and Martha is beautiful commando and martial arts expert Ruby Roundhouse. They each have three lives; Spencer deduces that if they lose all three, they really die.
They learn the game's story from NPC Nigel: corrupt archeologist Russel Van Pelt stole the Jaguar's Eye (a magic jewel) from its shrine, cursing Jumanji. Nigel escaped Van Pelt with the jewel, and the players must return it to a jaguar statue and call "Jumanji" to lift the curse. Nigel warns them that Van Pelt will stop at nothing to retrieve the jewel, which gives him control of Jumanji's animals. They begin tackling the game's increasingly-difficult "levels", losing lives as they do so. The four are rescued by Alex (the missing fifth player, whose avatar is pilot Jefferson "Seaplane" McDonough). Taking shelter in a jungle house built by Alan Parrish, Alex believes that he has been in the game for a few months and is distressed to learn that it is really twenty years. The newcomers vow to help him return home. They break into a transportation shed, commandeering a helicopter to fly to the jaguar statue and return the jewel, but Fridge drops the jewel into a herd of white rhinoceros. Spencer uses one of Fridge's lives, pushing him out of the helicopter as a distraction, and retrieves the jewel. Alex loses his last life when a mosquito bites him, but Bethany performs CPR and transfers one of her lives to him.
At the statue, the players are surrounded by a pack of jaguars and Van Pelt's forces. They outmaneuver their opposition while Spencer and Martha race to the statue. Van Pelt confronts Martha (trapped in a pit of mambas) and demands the jewel, but she sacrifices one of her lives to re-spawn and get it to Spencer. With the players on their last lives, they end the game with Van Pelt disintegrating into a bunch of rats and return to the real world; Nigel bids them farewell, but Alex does not appear with them. They find the formerly-dilapidated Vreeke home restored and decorated for a Christmas family gathering. An adult Alex arrives, returning to where he left off in 1996. Now married with children, he named his eldest daughter after Bethany out of gratitude for saving his life and introduces them to his infant son, Andy.
Spencer and Fridge reconcile, Bethany begins caring for others more than herself and plans a summer backpacking adventure, Martha and Spencer become romantically involved and the four are now friends after their experiences in the game. When they hear Jumanji's drumbeats, they bring the game behind the school and Fridge destroys it with a bowling ball (also found in detention) to prevent anyone from playing it again.
Cast
- Dwayne Johnson as Smolder Bravestone
- Jack Black as Sheldon "Shelly" Oberon
- Kevin Hart as Franklin "Mouse" Finbar
- Karen Gillan as Ruby Roundhouse
- Nick Jonas as Jefferson "Seaplane" McDonough
- Bobby Cannavale as Russel Van Pelt
Crew
- Directed by: Jake Kasdan
- Screenplay and story by: Chris McKenna
- Screenplay by: Erik Sommers, Scott Rosenberg and Jeff Pinkner
- Based on:
- Picture book Jumanji and story for Jumanji by: Chris Van Allsburg
- Screenplay and story for Jumanji by: Greg Taylor and Jim Strain
- Screenplay for Jumanji by: Jonathan Hensleigh
- Produced by: William Teitler and Matt Tolmach