The Jungle School of Rock

Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (US, 2017)

Directed by Jake Kasdan

Review by Kate Roberts

I don’t think I’ve ever written a review while watching the movie. It’s not that Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle is so predictable that I could fake my way through this; quite the opposite, actually. This is the third time I’ve watched Jumanji in a week. I’m not obsessed. It’s not the best comedy I’ve ever seen, although it is one of the most quotable. There’s just something that works. Dwayne Johnson is in the prime of his jungle-movie stage, Jack Black was born to play a self-absorbed teenage girl, those drums still haunt my dreams, and there are just enough Moana parallels to make my Disney inner child and my Jumanji-raised ’90s inner child shake hands. It pushes the right buttons and has wholeheartedly replaced my go-to, “You go, girl,” with “Yas, Queen!” If you liked the original Jumanji and are terrified that this remake craps all over it, be reassured that it’s more of an homage than a sequel and that nothing could temper the sinister sound of those timpanis.

Teenagers aren’t bonding over board games anymore; video games are the new socially acceptable, pants-optional activity and Jumanji, the soul trap that ate Robin Williams all those years ago, is a game evolving to stay relevant. After shedding its board-game skin and morphing into a multi-player console, Jumanji was tucked away in a school basement among the TVs on rollers and shelves of National Geographics. One fateful Friday, the school tasks a breakfast club of four teenagers to clean out that forgotten basement. Without supervision, they are more than happy to use the super retro, dusty game as a distraction from their work. They each choose a character and suddenly the sound of drums creeps out of the woodwork. Yes, those drums. The game goes haywire and sucks the teenagers into the world of Jumanji where they become the players they selected: Dr. Smolder Bravestone (Dwayne Johnson), Moose Finbar (Kevin Hart), Ruby Roundhouse (Karen Gillan) and Prof. Shelly Oberon (Jack Black). The four teenagers, more confused and uncomfortable than usual, can only escape the game after they return a special jewel to the top of a mountain guarded by wild animals and evil henchmen on motorbikes. Having two extra lives is an added perk, but it doesn’t feel like that will be enough.

We’re used to Dwayne Johnson bursting in like the Kool-Aid man and showering his company with kindness, just like we’re used to Jack Black being an uncoordinated, sarcastic man-panda. So, when these type-cast actors step out of their norms to play teenagers trapped in the bodies of their traditionally type-cast characters, things get a little weird. Emotionally and grammatically. I thought the premise would be campy and forced, but the cast play their roles so well it’s almost scary. Jack Black plays that teenage girl everyone hates but openly has to admire in order to be respected by the high school food chain. She misses her phone, Noah just broke up with her, jungle goons are chasing them and she was eaten by a rhino so she’s allowed to be a little upset, okay? Without the right characters, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle would have been a sad, fragmented tribute to the original. It’s a relief and a surprise that everyone pulled this off smoothly with more organic hilarity than a cat in a tiny box. A terrified and anxious Dwayne Johnson, a flirtatious Jack Black, an unconfident Karen Gillan, and…Kevin Hart, are the kind of energetic, skeptical group that make this a perfect team-up.

Which one is my favourite? Well, it’s hard to pi – Jack Black. Bethany/the Map Doctor has arguably the most growth. For a teenager so obsessed with her image, it’s magical to see her get comfortable as an overweight, middle-aged Jack Black. Her new man-parts may be distracting but she’ll always find time to teach the awkward Ruby Roundhouse how to flirt for their lives.

The team is so ridiculous and so green that it’s amazing they survive one hour in Jumanji, a prison we ’90s kids fear more than Azkaban. Dr. Smoulder Brave-

(Nick Jonas). No mission is complete without a pop-up Jonas Brother. He knows his way around the game and, most importantly, makes a mean margarita between levels. Seaplane is the seasoned expert and the perfect target for Bethany’s untameable flirting.

Jumanji is as much an adventure comedy and summer camp quest as it is a video game movie. There’s a big bad villain with eyeliner and doomsday slogans plus cut scenes, booby traps, market rations, extra lives, rhyming clues and non-player characters. If you’ve ever been in the presence of a running video game, you will find Jumanji a respectful nod to the classics. This comedy is addictively quotable and an easy way to push a crowd into laughing hysterics. Clearly, it’s got something special. Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle is the dorky adoptive child of the original, slightly terrifying stone, who spends a few seconds each scene revelling in how awesome it is to be The Rock, has a specific line item in his strength list called “smouldering intensity” that turns on without warning. Meanwhile Moose Finbar’s weakness is cake – and strength. That’s hardly fair. It will take a heavy push of teamwork to make it to the top of Jumanji’s mountain. That includes an out-of-nowhere assist from Jefferson “Seaplane” McDonough

Jumanji. For a light, unexpected comedy, it’s easily 9 hypnotized rhinos out of 10.

Running time:2 hours, Rated PG Available on Crave and other streaming services.

Kate Roberts grew up in the Glebe and is a movie addict who has been writing reviews since 2013. Her reviews can be found at plentyofpopcorn.wordpress.com

Merry of soul he sailed on a day Over the sea to Skye (Robert Louis

Stevenson)

by Chris McNaught

Boomers, Gen X, Gen Z, Gen-duh — enough birth-tagged consignment of each new bundle of joy to the human race! We’ve been too deaf, too long. Climate and pandemic, martial chest-beating, cowardly humanitarian myopia, pernicious racism and partisan blindness, all imprison our better angels — free them! Whatever your age, we all need to pole together on our raft-down-time.

Please stay on board with the metaphor. Life’s a one-way voyage, unalterably running with the current, the Grand Destiny not in our hands, but the passage in many ways ours to (mis)manage. Ultimately, our personal bow-wave collapses on the Far Shore; whether it sparkles brightly on the sand or gets tossed up as soggy flotsam is our minimal, but significant, choice. Upscaling the metaphor, we can choose to embark on Masefield’s “dirty British coaster with a salt-caked smokestack,” or book passage on a “stately Spanish galleon!”

But stow the heavy allusions and come over to the leeward. Listen. Listen, free of political charlatans, wannabes and cell-phone necrosis: our raft is buoyed by sanguine, seraphic music –music? In the early 60s, western society hopped and bopped to rock’n’ romance, which fell prey to facile slotting of its ‘era’, was blanched by the bland 70s, then lost in the vague 80s and nowhere 90s. Now those doowop days are shelved in internet caves and old folks’ cable channels – they beg resurrection!

Hear me ‘holler’ (Tom Sawyer’s on board of course) joyously: revisit those eternally innocent, infectious (non-pandemic!) surprisingly layered harmonies. Sing your heart out into the wind. Let the ‘angels listen in’ as we dance with the grace of our youth under the bow torch. May it never be snuffed!

Bop-bop, shingaling-aling, bop…

Chris McNaught is a Glebe author and former criminal lawyer and university lecturer. His most recent novel is Dùn Phris, A Gathering, Pegasus/Vanguard Press, UK, 2020.

Joel Harden MPP Ottawa Centre N 613.722.6414

E JHarden-CO@ndp.on.ca T @joelharden www.joelharden.ca

April 22 was Earth Day, one of my favourite days of the year.

Earth Day is a time when we reflect on environmental advocacy and commit to protecting the planet we love, of which human beings are only one part.

Indigenous leaders urge us to build a viable future for seven generations in front of us and be inspired by the seven generations behind us.

However, that can’t happen if we allow the fossil fuel industry to steer our politics. It can’t happen if we delay the ambitious change needed to embrace a truly sustainable future. We must do better and celebrate those who’ve pushed us to be better.

I think of leaders like Rachel Carlson, whose book Silent Spring (1962) inspired environmental movements that came later. “We stand now where two roads diverge,” Carson wrote. “But unlike the roads in Robert Frost’s familiar poem, they are not equally fair. The road we have long been traveling is deceptively easy, a smooth superhighway on which we progress with great speed, but at its end lies disaster. The other fork of the road – the one less traveled by – offers our last, our only chance to reach a destination that assures the preservation of the earth.”

I see this other road through leaders in Ottawa Centre. Groups like Ecology Ottawa, which advocates for environmental change all across our city. I think of Enviro Centre, Bike Ottawa, Ottawa Renewable Energy Cooperative and Fridays for Future Ottawa, which do the same.

I joined many of these groups in Dundonald Park on Earth Day for a celebration of local change-makers leading the way on sustainability and environmental education in our community. The energy at this event was electric and showed the passion for environmental change in Ottawa.

Our task now is to support and coalesce environmental leadership at a local level and bring this energy into official realms. The week before Earth Day, I rose in the legislature to commit to doing my part for the planet and to note that the prime reason I ran for office was to take action on our climate emergency.

These are important words, but words are not enough. Earth Day should be a time to commit to action, and I’m proud to commit to an exciting event taking place this fall that you can support.

From September 14-17, I will be riding my bicycle from Ottawa to Toronto to raise awareness about the need for road safety and the value of active transportation as a climate solution. We are calling this trip the #SafetyRide for people and planet.

The #SafetyRide is also an effort to consult communities between Ottawa and Toronto about Bill 40 – the Moving Ontarians Safely Act – which aims to protect vulnerable road users like pedestrians, cyclists and powerchair users. Bill 40 will be up for second reading on September 19.

Now is the time for change. Let’s keep up the work for environmental justice.

As your representative in Toronto, I want to hear from you. If you have opinions to share with me on environmental justice or any other matters, please send a message to joel@joelharden.ca