Dewayne Johnson – Memphis Flyer

Imagine my surprise when I discovered that Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle is an adequately constructed, reasonably functional piece of entertainment. Maybe that doesn’t sound like much — being merely adequate seems like a ridiculously low bar to clear for a major studio production that cost $100 million. Imagine saying that about any other industry’s product. “My car doesn’t explode and kill me when I start it” is hardly an endorsement. You don’t have to say “This food processor won’t inject deadly blowfish toxin into your infant’s pureed carrots.” That’s pretty much expected, right? But this is the state of big-budget Hollywood filmmaking as we open 2018 — I am shocked when a film that cost enough to pay the salary of 2,080 Tennessee middle school teachers doesn’t make me pray for the sweet release of death.

Make no mistake — this is exactly the extruded, film-type product that is the big studios’ reason for being these days. It’s a remake of the 1995 Robin Williams film Jumanji, directed by Joe Johnson, the special effects wizard whose most recent credit is the first Captain America movie. In that not-very-well-remembered non-classic, kids (including a 13-year-old Kirsten Dunst) find a magical, explorer-themed board game that causes things to appear in real life with a roll of the dice, including Williams, who had been trapped in the game’s jungle setting since 1969. But as Welcome to the Jungle‘s Alex (Mason Guccione) says in the film’s brief intro, “Who plays board games any more?” So the board game magically upgrades itself to a console cart, and when Young Alex picks up his controller, he is sucked inside to an uncertain fate.

That was in 1996. Cut to present day, where four high schoolers are trying to make it through their day. Nerdy Spencer (Alex Wolff) is splitting his time between playing video games and writing papers for his hunky football player friend Fridge (Ser’Darius Blain). When their cheating is discovered, they get detention together. Selfie-obsessed Bethany (Madison Iseman) gets detention for making a Facetime call during a quiz, while bookish Martha (Morgan Turner) gets thrown in the teen clink for disrespecting her gym teacher. Our Breakfast Club heroes are assigned to help clean out the school basement, where they find the 20-year-old Jumanji console gathering dust. Once they plug it in and choose their characters, they are sucked inside the game. It’s like Tron, but with less neon.

Inside the game, they inhabit the bodies of the characters they chose. Spencer is now Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, aka Dr. Smolder Bravestone; Fridge is now Kevin Hart, or Professor “Mouse” Finbar, Bravestone’s sidekick; Martha is Karen Gillian, aka Ruby Roundhouse, the Laura Croft figure in midriff revealing short shorts; and, worst (or best) of all, comely Bethany is now Jack Black, aka Professor Shelly Oberon, the cartographer. Once they’re on the virtual ground, they learn the ropes of the video game world (everybody gets three lives, hippos are deadly, cake makes Finbar explode) and set out on the quest to complete the game and gain their freedom. Along the way, they hook up with Alex, now played by pop star Nick Jonas.

Director Jake Kasdan (son of Raiders of the Lost Ark scribe Lawrence Kasdan) should be credited for excellent casting. The main quartet has great chemistry and consistent comic chops. Hart particularly is pitch perfect as a vain football star who can’t get used to not being physically dominant. If all The Rock does for the rest of his career is comedy, it will be best for everyone. Gillian, who propped up the Doctor Who franchise for three seasons as companion Amy Pond, tackles the job of Token Leia with wry fun while sporting an amazing mane of red hair. And all you need to know about Jack Black’s role as a teenage girl trapped inside a pudgy middle aged man’s body is that there’s a scene where she/he has to figure out how to pee with a penis. Up against these four powerhouses, Jonas is clearly the weak link, barely able to hit his marks and squeak out his lines.

Everyone takes the material exactly as seriously as it deserves to be taken, which is to say not seriously at all. The plot is barely existent, but the fact that it’s a video game allows the folks inside it to crack constant meta jokes. Kasdan knows this is all about his stars’ charisma, and keeps them bouncing off each other in pleasing ricochets. Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle will fade from memory as soon as you leave the theater, but at least you won’t feel ripped off. And yes, Guns N’ Roses got paid.

“If you wear a dress and have an animal sidekick, you’re a Princess,” says Maui, demigod of land and sea voiced by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, of Moana, the eponymous heroine of the new Disney animated extravaganza.

Moana, voiced by a high school freshman named Auli’i Cravalho, is not technically a princess, but rather the daughter of Chief Tui Waialiki (Star Wars veteran Temuera Morrison), leader of Motunui, a picturesque village on a lovingly rendered Polynesian island. But those are just details that have been temporarily glued to the ever-evolving ideal of the Disney Princess. Snow White, Belle, Jasmine, Mulan, Pocahontas — the stars of Disney’s animated musicals are all gathered under the same corporate banner at princess.disney.com. They’re the bait that hooks the young girls into the Disney corporate synergy machine: See the movie, buy the merch, ride the ride. It’s easy to get cynical about all of it (and if you’re not feeling cynical yet, don’t worry, I’m cynical enough for both of us), but the truth is, Disney’s just really damn good at making these movies.

Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Auli’i Cravalho are the voices behind the demigod Maui (left) and Moana, the eponymous teen “princess” of Disney’s new animated feature.

From before Homer told the story of Achilles setting out across the wine-dark sea, we’ve understood that kids need heroes. Stories of trials, bravery, and purpose help us fill in the blanks of who we want to be and, thus, who we become. In the past, Disney’s youngest female fans had Sleeping Beauty as a hero: a character whose best qualities are her utter passivity and attractiveness to men. Now, they have Moana, and it’s a big improvement as role models go. Instead of waiting for a man to come save her and drag her off into domesticity, Moana makes her own decisions. The only men in her life are her stalwart but overprotective father and the vain, tempestuous demigod. Moana is bereft of romance, and it’s all the better movie for it. Instead, it’s the story of a young woman trying to cajole the men around her into doing the right thing and then giving up and just doing it herself. But in stripping the patriarchy from the Princess, all that’s left for directors Ron Clements, John Musker, Don Hall, and Chris Williams is a pretty straightforward Hero’s Journey, complete with an eccentric, elderly mentor (Gramma Tala, voiced by Rachel House); a descent into the underworld (for a musical number with a hostile giant crab); and a good, old fashioned leap of faith.

Did you catch that there are four directors? I think that’s a record for a non-anthology movie. But that’s Disney under the direction of John Lasseter, who brought the fluid, iterative, team-based creative process with him from Pixar. There’s one official screenwriter (Jared Bush), but at least seven people get “story by” credits — and yet the film still steals beats from Raiders of the Lost Ark and Mad Max: Fury Road. There are no missteps, but no big chances are taken, either.

The number of animators stretches well into the hundreds, and the evidence of that investment is up on the screen. Moana is one of the most gorgeous pictures Disney has ever produced. Nevermind the onslaught of stunning technical achievements, from Maui’s unruly locks of curls to the nonstop water effects that would have been impossible just a few years ago — Moana is a brilliantly designed animation. The human characters balance on the edge of the uncanny valley, and they are often interacting with backgrounds and objects that are as photorealistic as anything in a Marvel movie. The visuals are more inventive than the storytelling, and the most impressive moments come in the musical interludes. There’s one moment where Moana and Maui sing their way into an environment inspired by the impressionistic animation of Song of the Sea, and the contrast between the full rendered 3D CGI characters and the 2D backgrounds are like nothing I have ever seen before.

The songs, written by a team that included Hamilton scribe Lin-Manuel Miranda, are unfortunately not as memorable as the visuals. There’s no “Let It Go” or “Be Our Guest” here. With the exception of “Shiny,” sung by Flight of the Conchords Jemaine Clement as the aforementioned giant crab monster, the songs all kind of melt together into an unoffensive Disney goo that will one day seep through hidden speakers outside the Moana Outrigger Adventure ride at Disney World.

If you need me, I’ll be in the tiki bar.