The Rock isn’t just immense, he’s also charming and funny, cinematic gifts on display in this family-friendly action comedy. Worth your time? Hemal and Brian agreed, for once.

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In ‘Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle’, a band of mismatched high school students are sucked into an evil video game, where they inhabit the bodies of Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart, Jack Black and Karen Gillan. Also one of the Jonas Brothers, eventually. 

Much of the movie’s comedy derives from this conceit – a nerdy 17-year-old suddenly finds himself in the body of a gigantic action hero. The Rock pulls this off with a confident joie de vrie, as do his co-stars, especially Jack Black, channeling a queen bee cheerleader.

Technically this is the third Jumanji movie, building on the two oddball Robin Williams’ movies from the 90s – Jumanji and Zathura – but the filmmakers have wisely elected to mostly start from scratch, keeping only the outward trappings of the earlier films.

Hemal and Brian, your beloved co-hosts, have been bitterly divided on the cinematic works they’ve watched for this season of Ten Movies, but ‘Jumanji’ was a rare point of concurrence. We hope you find similar enjoyment in it.

Ten Movies is part of the Underdog Podcast network and is produced with help from Seth Everett and Anthony Gill.