Jumanji and Porgs

Happy New Year! Hope everyone had a good time with their families. I had a wonderful time in South Lake Tahoe with my family filled with skiing, gambling, games, and excessive eating. Crazy to think that the holidays have all come and gone. I meant to post this over my break from work but I have been stuck in a Black Mirror hole these past few days. If you have Netflix and haven’t watched Black Mirror, you need to get on that shit. Anyways, I was able to see both Star Wars and Jumanji this past week and now I’ll tell you all about it.

Star Wars: The Last Jedi (RT 90%)

Cut to the chase: The next film in the Star Wars saga, primarily about Rey working with Luke Skywalker to develop her new Jedi powers while the Resistance and First Order continue to battle each other.

*Let me preface this review by shamefully admitting that I never got into Star Wars as a kid. I wish I did but it just wasn’t talked about at all in my family. I think I was about 14 the first time I even knew the movies existed and saw the first half of A New Hope. It’s not that I don’t like the movies I just haven’t seen them as much as everyone else.  I’m actually not sure if I’ve ever seen the 2^nd or 6^th movies at all. So this review is coming from someone with not much knowledge about the Star Wars universe, sorry.

This was a really fun movie to watch in theaters. With a runtime of 152 minutes it definitely felt long and there were lots of parts where I thought it was going to end but I was happy it didn’t. I, along with the few people who I have discussed this film with seem to like this one better than the previous one (The Force Awakens). We got more backstory on Rey and Kylo Ren’s characters in this one which I really enjoyed. There was a good mix of drama and action and I understood this one a lot more than the previous film.

The porgs were a nice addition. They didn’t overdo them which made the scenes where you see them even more cute. An interesting fact that my boyfriend told me- the porgs were created because that island they filmed those scenes on has these crazy loud puffins that they had to film around. Since they couldn’t edit them out or physically remove them they just created the porg to replace them.

I was left a little disappointed because there was all this buildup about Reys parents and I’m still stuck wondering who they are… I’m not convinced that they were just drifters. Guess we will have to wait till the next one.

You definitely need to have watched The Force Awakens to understand what is going on as it picks up pretty much immediately after that film ends. I’m sure most people will see this regardless of what I write about it but I would definitely recommend seeing it in the theater. The surround sound and big screen made the action scenes really awesome and you won’t have the same experience watching it at home.

Jumanji: Welcome To The Jungle (RT 77%)

Cut to the chase: A fun and modern reboot of the classic board game film but with lots of dick jokes despite it clearly being a kid’s movie.

This is one that I have been looking forward to for a while. When I first heard about it I was skeptical but after watching the trailer I changed my thinking. The original Jumanji was a pretty good film but it came out in 1995 and even though board games are making a comeback, it’s still pretty outdated by today’s technology. “Welcome To The Jungle” was a pretty good reboot but it was definitely a kids movie – despite the dick jokes that I hope went over the 6 year old girl’s head sitting behind me in the theater. Not to say those jokes weren’t hilarious it just seemed a little out of place compared to the rest of the jokes in the film.

The story starts out by giving some backstory on the main characters. Together they are depicted as a brain, an athlete, a basket case, and a princess… wait, that sounds familiar. They even all get stuck in detention and are forced to work together. If I didn’t know better I would’ve thought it was a Breakfast Club reboot. While in detention, they stumble on an old game console with a “Jumanji” game cartridge inside. Once they set it up they get digitally implanted into the game and in the bodies of the avatars they chose.

Jack Black is by far the best part of this movie. It wouldn’t be nearly as funny without him in it. The annoying popular girl, Bethany chooses his character in the game thinking that “Shelly” was a girl’s name. Turns out, Shelly is actually Sheldon and she’s stuck in Jack Blacks less than sexy body. The way the actors took their teenage counterparts and emulated them was impressive but none more than Jack Black. His teenage girl accent is on point and every single time he opened his mouth I was dying. Of course, you could also imagine the female to male jokes that ensued. Kevin Hart teaching Jack Black how to pee was one of the funniest scenes, yet I felt it was a little out of place. They even went as far as throwing a boner in there too at the end, with one character saying “Uh... you have a situation.” And Jack Black responding with “Oh my God! These things are crazy!”

I wouldn’t rush out to the theater to see it but it was a fun and easy watch. Unless you have movie pass I would wait till you can find it streaming to watch it.

I'm not one for making New Years resolutions but I do really want to keep this up. Hopefully I can keep making time for this in 2018, it feels nice to have a creative outlet outside of work.

That’s it for this post! Stay tuned for my next review. (and watch Black Mirror already!)