Nostalgia for the 1980s has been too narrow in scope lately, focusing on genre pieces featuring kid characters, in the horror remake “It” and Netflix sci-fi series “Stranger Things.”
Other important ’80s touchstones, like John Hughes teen comedies and all those films in which a person wakes up in the wrong body — “Big” and “All of Me” were the best of them — have been overlooked as inspirations.
The winning “Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle” smartly exploits these two strains of neglected ’80s comedy. It combines them into a story in which a video game sucks a “Breakfast Club”-style foursome into a jungle world where they become avatars drastically different from themselves. “Jungle” also offers more star power (Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart, Jack Black) than one might expect from a sequel to a so-so film.
To be clear about era, “Jungle” is set in the present day and is a sequel to the Robin Williams film from 1995 — if only nominally, offering a brief mention of Williams’ character. But its appeal is all ’80s, down to its “Indiana Jones”-style action scenes.
Nerds Spencer (Alex Wolff) and Martha (Morgan Turner), football jock Fridge (Ser’Darius Blain) and selfie-obsessed popular girl Bethany (Madison Iseman) get detention on the same day. In the storage room they are told to clean up, they find an old gaming console, turn it on and choose avatars.
After the game sucks them in, they discover it did not give a full picture of its avatars. Slim Spencer transforms into a jacked archaeologist (Johnson). The Fridge loses a foot in height in becoming a zoologist played by Hart. Martha is now an expert fighter (played by Karen Gillan, from “Guardians of the Galaxy” and “Doctor Who”) with exposed, video-game-heroine abs that embarrass her. Bethany turns into a cartologist named Sheldon (Black), who had been “Shelly” in the game.
The foursome must elude poisonous snakes, charging rhinos and a villain (Bobby Cannavale, minus his usual charisma). Most of the Indy-style action scenes — directed by Jake Kasdan, son of “Raiders of the Lost Ark” screenwriter Lawrence — engage. But this movie’s significant entertainment value comes almost entirely from the Hughes/wrong-body mash-up.
Johnson is good at suggesting a timid teen beneath his wall of muscle. Gillan seems believably unsure of herself as the nerd Martha, while also making exposed abs look classy.
Hart never seems at all like Blain, the comparably mellow young actor with whom he shares his role, or like anyone but Hart. But it’s always good to see him.
Black has great fun playing Bethany, sashaying a bit too much but never lapsing into caricature. Though Bethany is disappointed to be in the body of an overweight, middle-aged man, she appreciates part of her new anatomy — the part a lot of real middle-aged men appreciate. (The PG-13-rated film’s more adult humor is subtle enough that younger viewers might not catch it).
The film’s best moments showing the characters bonds as teens, “Breakfast Club”-style, within their new bodies. The “girls” get their Molly Ringwald-Ally Sheedy moment when Bethany tries to boost Martha’s self-confidence regarding her appearance. Even though it is Black playing Bethany, and the gorgeous Gillan as Martha, you believe the dynamic.
Carla Meyer is a Northern California freelance writer
Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle
Adventure comedy. Starring Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart, Jack Black, Karen Gillan. Directed by Jake Kasdan. (PG-13. 119 minutes)