New Trailer: A ‘Jumanji’ for the Video Game Age

Photo

The new trailer for “Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle,” which arrived Wednesday, suggests it’s less of a sequel to the Robin Williams’ 1995 family favorite than it is to “Central Intelligence,” the 2016 comedy with Dwayne Johnson and Kevin Hart. They’re part of the ensemble in the new film, but their easy slapstick chemistry ultimately takes center stage in the trailer, pushing aside even their co-star, the veteran scenery chewer Jack Black.

In the original “Jumanji,” an eerie board game brings elephants and rhinos to suburbia. But the new film takes the players (actually, their adult avatars) to the wilderness. The Hawaiian locations are put to good use in the preview, which ends with an offer to win a vacation to the Aloha State. The trailer gets bonus points for using Guns N’ Roses’ original take of “Welcome to the Jungle” rather than getting some younger band to rerecord it.

Everything else about the new version seems supercharged. The quaint board game has been transformed into a video game, and the souped-up CGI makes the 1995 version look downright primitive.

The question is whether the new movie will be as wildly popular without its predecessor’s chief special effect: Williams. Moviegoers will find out when “Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle” hits theaters on Dec. 20.

Continue reading the main story