 It's 1995's Jumanji vs the 2017 sequel. That's what it's calling itself. A sequel. There's a jungle pun counteractive, so expect some terrible play on words to accompany this feud. I'd be lying if I said they were any good. Let's get started. Solid lineup of both young and old actors alike. Robin Williams, of course, being the movie's biggest draw as a grown-up Alan Parrish. It's a great role for Williams as he gets to incorporate that childhood innocence with a harsh jungle survivor. His often frantic personality plays well off the two main kids of the picture, Judy and Peter Shepard. Played by Kirsten Dunst and Bradley Pierce. Bradley holds his own, but Dunst is just terrific here. Casually tossing out elaborate lies to people for her own amusement. One could say she's naughty by nature. Hollywood Square's mainstay, Bonnie Hunt as Parrish's grown-up love-interest Sarah Whittle, has some solid moments as well, especially early on when she's trying to unpack all the insanity Alan is telling her. The criminally underrated David Alan Greer shows up throughout the picture as a bumbling cop. Then there's Jonathan Hyde who's pulling double duty as both Alan's father and later as Van Pelt, a hunter who spilled over from Jumanji hell-bent on killing our protagonist. Jumanji, welcome to the jungle, stupid title, brings back none of the original cast, nor does it even feel remotely similar in tone. What we do get is not bad though. In fact, it's pretty enjoyable. The teenager characters slash actors are serviceable but nothing noteworthy. I didn't recognize any of them but I'm gonna go out in a limb and say that they're from TV shows that I don't watch, either that or their old Vine creators that have spilled over. This is just gonna keep happening. The real stars are the avatar versions of our four protagonists, Jack Black, Karen Gillen, Kevin Hart, and Dwayne Johnson. He especially rocks, says Spencer. A wimpy kid turned musclebound explorer. Jack Black gets most of the chuckles doing the classic girl in a man's body routine, complete with multiple dick jokes including an extended penis sequence and an erection gig that left my daughter and five-year-old son completely puzzled. It's a family film. Kevin Hart's in this too. He's pretty funny here, but while all the other actors are clearly playing teenagers, he's very much his Kevin Hardiest still. Karen is distractingly hot here. Anytime she was on the screen in her little outfit, I couldn't take my eyes off her. Later on she puts a jacket on around her shorts, which does absolutely nothing but remind me to jack it after the film. I'm not even above the lowest form of joke here. Subscribe. Later in the picture, the sultry Nick Jonas joins the crew. He's a pilot who has been stranded in the game for a very long time. He also gets to name-drop Alan Parrish just to remind people that this is still pretending to be a sequel. Van Pelt is once again the bad guy for some reason. I guess that's just the name given to the Jungle's resident villain. He's completely pointless and it feels like he was just put in to have one final connection to the film. It's a classic case of Monkey See, Monkey Don't. When the original Jumanji was announced, I remember a lot of people saying a movie based on a children's book that's only 32 pages long from the 80s? Hollywood has officially run out of ideas. Their complaints were very specific. Now we have spin-off movies based off movies based on books. Now we have movies based on TV shows that were based on movies. Now we have sequels of remakes of movies of sequels of prequels. So shut up 90s. You don't know what unoriginal is yet. The 95 flick is still a really well-made and pleasant movie going experience for all ages. The Captain America director and the seven writers attached to this thing blend some riveting set pieces with a good amount of genuine heart. The lion's share of those feel-good moments come from Robin Williams himself. Alan Parrish has an incredibly sad and dark storyline. He's bullied as a child and is pleased for help go ignored by his father. He was planning on running away but in the final second ops to heed the call of a demented board game that's drumming his name. One unlucky dice roll later and he's stuck in the jungle for over two decades only to be released into a very different town. The once thriving community is now in shambles because of his disappearance 26 years earlier. He now has to finish the game he started as a child to turn back the hands of time. I once thought that playing Settlers of Catan with my family was the worst sort of hell one could experience when playing a board game. Jumanji takes the cake here. Kevin Hart's character is allergic to cake for some dumb reason in the film. I'm counting that pun. It's a cool story and one that Jumanji welcomed to the jungle doesn't really bother exploring. Instead it opts for the extremely easy method. A breakfast club premise where a ragtag group of students from different walks of life get detention. Think the new Power Rangers film except for with actual action and enjoyment. I know some of you like that I still have no idea why. They're tasked to clean up an old section of the school and it's there that they stumble upon an Atari looking game machine. The premise is odd right off the bat. Kids find the board game on the beach, bring it to the house. It learns that kids don't like playing board games anymore so turns itself into a shitty old video game machine that kids still would ignore. Like who wants to play an Atari? Nobody. Much like porn it adapts with the changing times. The game eventually makes its way to our leads and they decide to play it even though it looks like a freshly grown banana. Which is to say unappealing. They get sucked into the jungle as video game characters that are tasked with retrieving a large gem to essentially reboot Jumanji or something. The movie is full of really lame jokes and bad writing that somehow work because the cast is so damn likeable. The chemistry is on point and perhaps with a better fine-tuned script this could have been something special. As it stands it's a passable movie full of every cliche in the book including a character saying he won't do something and then immediately doing it in the next scene. Half a dozen uses of the word literally because a thesaurus is for nerds. Hero poses. A nostalgic song throwback. So on and so forth. There is a surprisingly sweet ending I wasn't expecting. Harkins back to the original and Dwayne The Rock Johnson kicks the shit out of a bunch of people in a village reminded me of the rundown. That movie's awesome so I was happy. CGI was not a great place in the 90s and should have been avoided at most costs. Jumanji does still work well 90% of the time. The lion still looks perfect. God. Along with the man eating plants and killer bugs the monkeys are however just terrible and the spider seemed incredibly half-assed at the end. It's an inconsistent mesh of styles that doesn't blend the greatest. Overall it still gets the point across and the music composed by James Horner helps carry some of the lackluster moments. Welcome to the jungle's inconsistent too. So there I like that it uses the same style of animation as the 95 one to suck our characters into the game and there are some callbacks to the animals too. The rhinos certainly look better here. It lacks any real style of its own though. I expected some grander vistas and locations. Henry Jackman did the score this time around and I'm at a bit of a loss. I don't remember a single note which probably means it wasn't that remarkable outside of the standard welcome to the jungle ending we were all expecting. There is a lot of spectacle on display from an action standpoint. A helicopter escape, a motorcycle chase, a dance fighting scene that doesn't actually contain any dance fighting but still cool because Karen's there, she's got her outfit, I'm watching, I'm perving, it's all good. Family, family film. It doesn't overstay its welcome which nowadays is high praise. So let's make like a tree and finish this. It's a missed opportunity there I think. Two completely different movies here that are really only similar in name and a few elements. So pick your poison. Do you prefer a slower family-friendly film with a good amount of heart and a surprisingly rich story? Or are you more aligned with the Rockham Sockham extravaganza that 2017 provides? The new movie is an easy watch and I could certainly see why you would vote that your winner. I think 95s has a special something about it and it lasts longer than the two-hour runtime. Who cares what I think though? Make your voice heard, vote for your winner and remember this is more than just reviews. This is movie feuds. I apologize for the lackluster pun counter. It should have been dick themed. I could have stretched out a long grouping of hard pointed jokes, throbbing with humor, erected in Robin Williams honor. Missed opportunity.