Somehow, it has been seven whole years since Jake Kasdan's Jumanji: The Next Level arrived in cinemas, doubling down on the body-swap comedy and lea
Somehow, it has been seven whole years since Jake Kasdan’s Jumanji: The Next Level arrived in cinemas, doubling down on the body-swap comedy and leaving us on a tantalising ‘virtual meets reality’ cliffhanger. But now, five prime ministers, a pandemic, and an in-ring The Rock WWE return later, it’s time to plug in for one last adventure with Jumanji: Open World, the trilogy (well, technically, quadrilogy) closing blockbuster finale to Kasdan’s franchise revival. Dwayne Johnson, Karen Gillan, Kevin Hart, Jack Black, and the whole gang are back. The game realm of Jumanji has come to the real world. And if the first trailer’s anything to go by, chaos is about to ensue — check it out below;
Welcome back to Jumanji! Or, rather, Jumanji welcome back to us. As fans of the franchise will recall, the last movie ended with Jumanji players Spencer (Alex Wolff), Fridge (Ser’Darius Blain), Bethany (Madison Iseman), and Martha (Morgan Turner) leaving a cafe and walking headfirst into a stampede of ostriches from inside the game. And now, in the self-explanatorily titled Open World, Dr. Bravestone (Johnson), Mouse Finbar (Hart), Ruby Roundhouse (Gillan), and Shelly Oberon (Black) have all found themselves set loose in our world too — albeit, it seems, in ‘demo mode’ (yes, we see you ‘Spanish Buzz’ Dwayne Johnson.) Cue more body-swapping shenanigans, videogame trope riffing, and slapstick hilarity as our somehow-still-teen heroes find themselves trying to quite literally get Dr. Bravestone and co back in the game. What can we say? It’s Jumanji!
And here’s Jumanji: Open World‘s official synopsis: “This Christmas, Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart, Jack Black, and Karen Gillan are reunited in Jumanji: Open World, the hilarious new installment of the wildly successful global action-adventure franchise. Our heroes have escaped the ever-changing jungles of Jumanji before, but this time the game comes to us — as Jumanji breaks free of its console, unleashing its chaos into our world.”
Given that this whole contemporary Jumanji trilogy has been something of an unexpected gift so far (Welcome To The Jungle was a total breath of fresh air; The Next Level delivered more of that air, only on a bigger scale), consider us plugged in and ready to play one last time when Jumanji: Open World hits cinemas this Christmas.
