Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle

Tropic Blunder

Grade: C +

Director: Jake Kasdan

Starring: Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart, Jack Black, Karen Gillan, Nick Jonas, Bobby Cannavale, Alex Wolff, Madison Iseman, Ser'Darius Blain, and Morgan Turner

MPAA Rating: PG-13

Running Time: 1 hr. 59 min.

It’s probably giving the makers of Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle too much credit to note that a film whose premise revolves around kids magically occupying adult bodies includes a brief appearance by the son of Tom Hanks, the star of Big almost thirty years ago. That said, this sequel—undoubtedly named after the Guns N’ Roses song once the producers obtained the rights to play it over the closing credits—is a lot like Colin Hanks: a capable progeny that nonetheless pales in comparison to its popular predecessor.

The Jumanji board game in the 1995 film, which starred Robin Williams, is replaced with an Atari-esque video cartridge, exhumed by a quartet of high schooler archetypes doing detention: Spencer (Alex Wolff) is the nerd, “Fridge” (Ser'Darius Blain) is the burly jock and Spencer’s sometimes pal; Bethany (Madison Iseman) is the pretty, solipsistic It girl who is emotionally attached is nothing except her cell phone; and Martha (Morgan Turner) is the brainy bookworm.

Unlike the 1995 original, where the game’s contents were unleashed into the real world, here the teens are teleported into the Jumanji video game, where each is assigned an avatar. Spencer is a strong, speedy explorer name Dr. Smolder Bravestone, played by Dwayne Johnson. “Fridge” is reduced to Bravestone’s diminutive sidekick (Kevin Hart), with a penchant for zoology and a weakness for cake. Martha becomes a comely commando (Karen Gillan), while Bethany becomes Professor Sheldon Oberon (Jack Black), a portly cartographer and, well, man.

Most of the chuckles come compliments of the age, gender, and persona-swapping gags. Johnson is convincing as a young nebbish suddenly coping with the body of a muscle-bound hero, while Jack Black exudes the superficial silliness of a self-absorbed teen girl. Hart is hilarious as the BMOG suddenly cut down to size. Even Nick Jonas pops up as another kid caught in the game to demonstrate that, indeed, Nick Jonas can carry a role.

Still, the premise and set pieces are uninspired and instantly forgettable. Any sticky situation is quickly resolved, and any sense of danger is minimized by the multiple lives each player possesses, a la a video game. Moreover, the film needlessly sacrifices its PG-rating for the sake of stray profanities and sexual allusions scattered throughout, particularly revolving around Bethany’s male anatomical self-discovery. Whatever marginal comedic value these off-color moments hold don’t befit the wide target audience for a holiday season release.

The camaraderie between the characters and cast carries the film. Otherwise, while the original Jumanji sprang on a fictitious board game, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle is more of a bored game.

Get Hard

Exactly who is carrying whom?

Grade: C

Director: Etan Cohen

Starring: Will Ferrell, Kevin Hart, Craig T. Nelson, Alison Brie, Edwina Findley Dickerson and T.I.

MPAA Rating: R

Running Time: 1 hr. 40 min.

Given the fact that Get Hard is premised around the offensive prejudices held by one of its lead characters, it’s sadly ironic that the film spends the bulk of its running time and attempts at comedy exacerbating racial, gender and sexual stereotypes. It starts with the inherent double entendre in the movie’s title, which is repeated to exhaustion throughout. It ends with a climax whose utter laziness is preferable to offending another demographic before the closing credits roll.

The teaming of Will Ferrell and Kevin Hart sounds like a match befitting the comedic zeitgeist, and even through this muck of a movie, that impression proves accurate. Ferrell plays James King, a wealthy hedge-fund manager engaged to a spoiled trophy wife-to-be (Alison Brie) whose father (Craig T. Nelson) is James’ billionaire boss. James’ elitist life is upended when he’s framed for securities fraud and sentenced to 10 years in San Quentin. Fearing the perils of prison life, James hires Darnell (Hart), his car washer and thus the only black person anywhere in his orbit, to teach him how to “get hard” and survive on the inside.

Here’s the hook: James presumes Darnell has been to prison because, well, he’s black. But Darnell’s closest brush with the law is inserting himself into a recitation of the plot to Boyz n the Hood. With the guidance of his gangbanger cousin Russell (the rapper T.I.), Darnell morphs into a state pen sensei training James on the fine arts of mad dog faces, crafting shivs and “keistering.”

There are obvious aspirations of Trading Places at play here—a scene where James and Darnell crash an aryan biker hangout also borrows from 48 Hrs. Writer-director Etan Cohen—who once wrote Idiocracy and Tropic Thunder, but also Men in Black 3—squanders the marriage of Ferrell’s blowhard doofus and Hart’s machine-gun mania on base humor with broad resonance. Beyond the race and gender gags, the plot constantly returns to prison rape yucks and a conception of even causal homosexuality centered around predatory practices and bathroom rendezvouses.

What’s equally regrettable is that there’s actually the kernel of an insightful comedy here. You glimpse it when James educates Russell’s Crenshaw Kings pals on the vagaries of white-collar crime, leading one to astutely declare that its even more “gangsta” than standard issue stickups.

These flashes can’t overcome the rank wrongheadedness of a script that compounds its insipidness with jokes and set-ups that will feel dated by the time you reach the theater’s exit door. It’s an Adam Sandler movie with funnier front men—not exactly the trading places the filmmakers had in mind.

About Last Night

Uh, sorry baby, but my name's still atop the marquee

Grade: C –

Director: Steve Pink

Starring: Kevin Hart, Michael Ealy, Regina Hall, Joy Bryant and Christopher McDonald

MPAA Rating: R

Running Time: 1 hr. 40 min.

If Kevin Hart’s recent spate of ubiquity has proven anything, it’s that the flibbertigibbet funnyman is both the best and worst part of his films. On one hand, his high-wire, rapid-fire repartee can elevate even the most mundane scene into something you have to follow for fear of missing his latest zany zinger or nutty non sequitur. However, Hart also hijacks his vehicles, whether intentionally or by involuntary force of nature. Consequently, there’s barely enough oxygen left of the rest of the cast and even the storyline to breathe, suffocating anything approaching nuance or intricate plot development.

The latest exhibit is About Last Night, a remake of the 1986 Brat Pack-era original starring Rob Lowe and Demi Moore. This modern reimagining incorporates the same basic storyline but with an African-American cast and sensibility. Danny (Michael Ealy) and Bernie (Hart) are best buds, and after Bernie enjoys a drunken, raunchy roll in the hay with Joan (Regina Hall), he introduces the reserved Danny to Debbie (Joy Bryant), Joan’s quiet roommate. Danny and Debbie enjoy their own one-night stand that quickly escalates into a full-blown romance, all while the tempestuous Bernie and Joan fall in and out of lust.

If it’s possible for a movie to be both exhausting and mundane, About Last Night is it. The narrative ping-pongs between the two couples. Danny and Debbie’s relationship arc goes from courting to moving in together to (gasp) coping ebbs in the romance, with any disagreement blown into a cataclysmic event that necessitates someone moving out or needing their space. No new ground is plowed, and if that sounds boring, it is. So, Pink often oscillates back to the Kevin Hart Show, which often features Bernie and Joan’s vulgar, shrill sniping.

And so it goes, until everyone discovers they really love each other and Pink decides it’s a good time to roll credits. About Last Night promises a story about the realities of romance, but what it actually delivers couldn’t feel more planned and processed. Or more like a Kevin Hart stand-up routine.

Ride Along

Stop, or my agent will shoot!

Grade: C –

Director: Tim Story

Starring: Ice Cube, Kevin Hart, John Leguizamo, Bryan Callen, Tika Sumpter and Laurence Fishburne

MPAA Rating: PG-13

Running Time: 1 hr. 40 min.

Those who just haven’t gotten enough of Kevin Hart (after all, how can you…?), Ride Along is here to let 2014 pick up where 2013 left off. Indeed, those Grudge Match commercials have barely stopped foisting Hart’s rapid-fire repartee above a couple of actors named De Niro and Stallone. Now comes this anti-buddy cop flick starring Hart alongside Ice Cube’s Scowl™ that’s as uneven as it is derivative.

Hart plays runt-sized Ben, a school security guard with aspirations of becoming an Atlanta police officer and marrying Angela (Tika Sumpter). Neither sits well with James (Scowl™), an undercover Atlanta detective who views the diminutive, video game-obsessed Ben as unworthy of the force and his baby sister. So James invites Ben on a daylong ride along designed to expose Ben’s fecklessness.

There are the expected Training Day, 48 Hrs. and Friday references. And once again proving the axiom that more is less, four screenwriters cook up a rudderless series of scenes centered exclusively around the two leads’ Mutt and Jeff routine. Scowl™ snarls and glares while Hart feverously spins his manic schtick. In fairness, Hart’s live-wire comedic act occasionally hits the mark and is the only reason to slog through this cacophony of cliches.

But, Ben’s persona is as scattershot as Hart’s parlance—one minute he’s squealing with fear, the next he’s full of bravado and shooting a reluctant CI in the shoulder; one minute he’s a dimwit, the next he’s untangling a Serbian arms investigation that James’ has been freelancing. Beyond being plain unlikeable, we’re told James is a surly loner, yet he has colleagues standing ready to wholly embarrass themselves in public for the sake of nominally embarrassing Ben.

Indeed, the only other entities that director Tim Story provides with any appreciable amount of screentime are the leggy Sumpter and James’ department-issued muscle car. Come to think of it, they have more personality than the rest of the cookie-cutter characters, including the blustery doubting sarge and double-dealing partners. Laurence Fishburne ambles along for a cartoonish bit part that, if nothing else, confirms for the audience that the cast is aware how bumpy this Ride Along is.