The Sixth Annual James Proclaims Advent Calendar of Christmas(ish) Films – Door 23

2019’s Jumanji: The Next Level is the sequel to 2017’s Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, which is, in itself, both a reboot and sequel of sorts to the original Jumanji. It may help to have seen the previous Jumanji movies to enjoy the 2019 offering, but it’s not really necessary. The Jumanji movies know who their target audience is and they are unashamedly easy viewing from the off.

And it’s hard not to enjoy a movie that is so intent on entertaining you. I’m certain there are gaping plot holes throughout the narrative, but I don’t care. Jumanji: The Next Level achieves the perfect balance of retaining everything that was great about Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle without being a total rehash of that movie. It even manages to pay an homage the 1995 original at the end too. I don’t think it would reasonable to ask anything more of a movie that is, on paper, a sequel to a reboot.

Score for Christmasishness

All three Jumanji movies are a bit Christmas(ish) but Jumanji: The Next Level is the most Christmas(ish) of the three because Christmas is actually a plot device. The four main characters from Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle are reunited because they are home for the holidays. It’s never Christmas within the demonic titular game, but in the ‘real world’ scenes it is very much Christmas throughout the movie and explicitly so.