Film Preview: Jumanji: The Next Level (2019)

Page Revisions:

(July 7, 2019) Original
(November 10, 2019) New Trailer (#2) / New Posters (#1-#17)
(December 8, 2019) New Posters (#18-#22)

Release Date:

December 13, 2019

Synopsis:

From IMDb: “A team of friends return to Jumanji to rescue one of their own but discover that nothing is as they expect. The players need to brave parts unknown, from arid deserts to snowy mountains, in order to escape the world’s most dangerous game.”

Poster Rating: B- / C- / C- / B- (7) / C+ / C+ (6) / C+ / C / C (3)

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Review: (#1) There is a lot of background detail here and while some of it seems repetitive, the whole design is at least modestly appealing. (#2) The same cannot be said for this design, which injects the actors into a sea of baboon heads and they look unrealistically out of place. (#3) Without seeing the trailer, the horse doesn’t make a lot of sense. That fact aside, this design doesn’t have a lot going for it, including a wasted backdrop. (#4-#10) These character posters are exceptionally clunky, but compared to a lot of other character posters that show up, there are plenty of positive attributes. Those attributes include different poses, different backdrops, and different framing devices, which gives each of them distinctive elements to set them apart while unifying them. (#11) Sometimes, you shouldn’t give an artist access to frames from the film. If you aren’t careful, they will do something almost terrible like this, which looks cheaply produced even if with a lot of background details. (#12-#17) These character posters largely put the heroes into scenes from the film, even if you aren’t completely certain the scenes actually occur in the film, they look ok. Each is distinct, which is a bonus.

(#18) While it’s something of a continuation of the six prior designs, it also feels a little more compact and complete with an interesting background. (#19) This is another in the series of designs and it’s just a lot duller because it looks so fake. (#20-#22) These two scenes continue to series, but have none of our heroes present, which makes them strangely ill-fitting.

Trailer Rating: C / C+

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Review: (#1) Part of what made the first film so special was the performances of Jack Black and Karen Gillan. Now that Black is impersonating a Danny DeVito character, a lot of the appeal has been lost. That said, all of the action sequences look a bit more spectacular than the prior film.

(#2) There are a few more bits of humor here worth selling, but the action elements are reduced and the humor isn’t that much better. They need to do more to appeal to fans of the original.