Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle is a new take on the original Jumanji featuring Robin Williams. Jumanji started out as a board game but updated to a 1996 video game because a kid, named Alex said, “who plays board games.” Alex was trapped in the game for twenty years because he couldn’t win it by himself. The game somehow ended up at a high school, where four kids had detention and found the game. Those kids’ names were Spencer, Fridge, Bethany, and Martha. They joined the game and worked together with Alex to win the game defeating the villain. The movie is about a version of the Breakfast Club winning a video game with very complex characters in and out of the game.
Spencer is unique and beats to drum of his own. He accepts the fact that he is a dork with lack of self-esteem in the beginning of the movie. This character has many fears compared to the other player of the game. He is afraid of animals in the beginning of the movie. It was a squirrel at the kids called the “Freak House” where the first player Alex had disappeared 20 years ago scared Spencer after his so-called friend Fridge left with a girl. He is scared even more when the owner of the “Freak House” comes out of his home and say, “Be careful where you loiter. The world sucks up kids like you.” The whole reason he was even at the “Freak House” was to give another player an essay for a class because the player is not school smart. The two conspirators were caught by the teacher and called to the office where the principal assigned them detention. This brings light to the next character, Anthony.
Anthony is known as Fridge. He is the jock, the all-American boy who is failing history. Fridge asks for help from the nerd, Spencer, to do his homework and write an essay for him. This makes him look stupid to Spencer and other viewers because it follows the stereotypical view of a jock in a movie. Anthony gets all the girls and is embarrassed to be seen with Spencer because Spencer is low in popularity. This is proven when a girl asks him if he wants a ride, and he takes her up on her offer. Anthony has been trying to lose Spencer as a friend since the seventh grade. He never truly wanted Spencer as a friend until it came time for homework and writing essays. Anthony asked Spencer to do his homework and write an essay to try to stay on the football team. In the end, they got caught, and Anthony was sent to detention. The next character is a beautiful blonde that also gets herself in trouble.
Bethany is self-absorbed and all about her cellphone. She’s so self-absorbed that she made a phone call in the middle of a quiz because she finished hers and was complaining to a friend about how her ex would not like or comment on her Instagram. The teacher said, “Bethany are you making a call in the middle of a quiz.” Bethany says, “I finished my quiz already.” The teacher says, “Have you noticed other people haven’t?” This is how Bethany ends up in detention. When she shows up late to gym class, this brings a new character to light, Martha.
Martha would rather use her brain than participate in gym class. The gym teacher tries to get her to participate in gym class, and Martha talks back to the gym teacher saying, “It’s not going to get me in to Princeton.” Obviously, Martha’s dream school is Princeton and that is her goal. She not big on doing fun things. She doesn’t believe school should be fun but for learning things that matter. After talking back to the teacher, she is assigned detention.
