What was a bigger surprise in December 2017 -
How The Last Jedi slightly underwhelmed, prompting calls for all sorts of over the top things?
The success of The Greatest Showman, a sanitized, saccharine account of the life of P.T Barnum?Or the success of Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle?
Probably Showman - but we've already talked about that and frankly it's not a great movie.
The rules are amazingly established for operating in a video game world. Character strengths and weaknesses end up being points of growth for the characters. The boys get "be brave" and the girls get "You don't have to hate everybody."
Not quite the opposite sides of a coin, I know.
I liked this cast walking into it - Dwayne Johnson (of course), Karen Gillan (I'll say it again - She is the best actress with a fairly large recurring role in the MCU presently), Jack Black (Who we will see again this month).
Black is in fact, fairly underrated, and this movie in particular shows that he is a massively talented guy, giving me a more convincing performance as a teenage girl than I myself was at the time.
Johnson is another person who is playing someone completely different than their stock character. Unlike Kevin Hart, who just has short jokes galore, his player character had so little establishing personality that Hart's natural screaming just took over and completely engulfed it.
Also Nick Jonas is here! ... He does well.
Some of the CGI animals are iffy at worst and fineish at best. It's not as riotous as the reviews would have one to believe, but it is enjoyable and shines with character interactions.
I just watched this movie recently and I agree with all your points. Definitely a nice little movie that can be watched over and over again. Jack Black was the scene stealer.
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