Do critics overlook the wrong movies? The case for 'Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle'

The “Breakfast Club”-borrowing premise — four American teenagers, stuck in detention, are whisked into a Nintendo-style console game and recast as highly incongruous avatars — becomes a clever pretext for the spectacle of Johnson, Kevin Hart, Jack Black and Karen Gillan looking wildly uncomfortable, even mortified, in their own bodies. You’ve seen more conceptually rigorous body-swap comedies, perhaps, but it’s still a hoot to watch Black reeling in horror from the sight of his own reflection, or Johnson genuinely not realizing his own strength. Gillan is delightful too as an awkward loner uneasily recast as the ensemble’s resident babe, even if the script falls into the icky middle ground of both mocking and perpetuating a sexist stereotype.

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