It’s difficult to accept a sequel to a well-loved film two decades later, but Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle has been impressing critics already. The film, a follow-up to the 1995 Robin Williams classic Jumanji, releases in the UAE on December 21.
Four students are held in detention when they find an old video game console and wind up becoming the adult avatars they choose. It stars Kevin Hart, The Rock, Jack Black, Karen Gillan and Nick Jonas.
Ser’Darius Blain, who plays Anthony ‘Fridge’ Johnson, begins the film as a “star football player, big jocky kid like LeBron James in a teenaged body. I get sucked into Kevin Hart’s body, who is 5’3 and 145 pounds, so it’s kind of a weird dichotomy there,” said Blain at 14th Dubai International Film Festival.
Madison Iseman, who describes her character Bethany Walker as your typical “self-absorbed, phone-obsessed, popular teenage” cheerleader, has her own wild transformation.
“She turns into her avatar, Jack Black, which is hilarious. Through the game, she discovers this new confidence she never knew about herself,” said Iseman, who went over the script with Black in great detail. “He really, really wanted to display the teenage girl inside of him, so we did a lot of that.”
For Blain, the conversation around how to portray Hart was pretty cut and dry. He recalls the comedian telling him: “Look, you’re big, I’m little. I’m funny, you be funny.”
“I was like alright, no pressure, no biggie,” said Blain. “[My character] finds out he has some heroism inside of him that’s not to do with his muscles or size, but his intellect.”
Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle showed at Diff on Saturday and will release across cinemas next week.
