Since the birth of "Raiders of the Lost Ark" in 1981, the film industry has a template for commercial popcorn films, which are basically wonderful visual/action scenes + passable plot + fast rhythm + appropriate jokes , and This routine template is still applicable even in the 21st century.
However, a suitable routine template can only lay the foundation for a film to pass. If a commercial film wants to be successful, it also involves other aspects of production.
However, in today's Hollywood, there are many directors or producers who always think that as long as this template is applied, the film will be successful, so a large number of commercial popcorn films that are quite unintentional have been born.
"Jumanji 2: Battle for the Peak", which I want to talk about today, is a typical example.
Passed but unsuccessful
"Jumanji" was originally a fantasy adventure film launched by Columbia Pictures in 1995. It came to an end after the second film was released. In recent years, Hollywood film companies have become popular for remakes, and Columbia Pictures has restarted this IP again.
The first "Jumanji: Battle for the Jungle" was released on Christmas Day in 2017. In the absence of anyone's optimism, it smashed 400 million US dollars in North America and won a global box office of 960 million US dollars . The performance can be said to be quite dazzling.
Of course, for an old IP, the more important thing is that this reboot has made a good mark in the past and laid a good foundation for the subsequent sequels.
However, the "Jumanji 2" released last year had a higher production cost than the previous game, not only the North American and global box office had shrunk by 1/4, but the ratings at home and abroad were quite average.
In terms of box office, although "Jumanji 2" as a commercial film is not as good as the previous work, it must be passable or even excellent, but this is based on the reputation brought by the previous work. From the perspective of the entire series, it is obvious that Can't be considered a success.
The reason why "Jumanji 2" is not as good as the previous one is mainly because from production to story design, character setting and even laughing points, there is a deliberate intention to overflow the screen everywhere.
intentional motive
There is a saying that "the script is the foundation of the movie" , which is a famous saying .
Whether it is a literary film that focuses on the plot, or a commercial film that wins with vision and action, a passing story is a must. Your story can be very simple or even not brilliant, but it must be above the standard line.
The biggest drawback of "Jumanji 2" is that the entire story takes place quite deliberately.
At the end of the last movie, the male protagonist has become a lover with the female protagonist, and he has gained his own friend, no longer the obedient and inferior boy.
However, if the male protagonist is not inferior, he will never want to return to the game world to be the omnipotent giant, and the story of "Jumanji 2" will not happen.
Therefore, the movie specially made the male protagonist get a few words when he was working, and then he burst into the game world and ran into the game world, and the heroine who stayed by his side and kept calling him was ignored like this.
No one's life is perfect. In the game world, although Kong Wuli is like a superman, the male protagonist is like a superman, but there are only a group of animals and game NPCs that accompany him, and there are dangers everywhere, and he may die at any time. in.
But in the real world, he not only has lovely girlfriends, but also good friends who have been born and died before. At most, his work is not smooth.
According to common sense, the male protagonist does not have the motivation to enter the game world. If he really wants to make a round for him, it can only be said that he is impulsive.
However, blaming the story of a movie on a character's "impulse" is already a very deliberate performance, and from the perspective of the movie as a whole, even the foundation is not well laid, and there is still hope How good is the movie?
Deliberate sense of crisis
Action movies have a very important point, which is how to create a sense of crisis.
The so-called sense of crisis is to make the protagonists get into trouble by setting some plots, so as to drive the audience's emotions and make them get sensory or visual stimulation.
For example, Tom Cruise's "Mission Impossible" series and most of Jackie Chan's movies like to use dangerous actions such as jumping off buildings and climbing trains to create a sense of crisis.
In the films of the "Jumanji" series, since the characters of the protagonists entering the game world can be said to have "superpowers", it is not easy for them to design difficulties that threaten their survival, and they are Game characters, everyone has three lives, the so-called sense of crisis is even more difficult to create.
On this issue, the producers did not think about how to design more difficult game levels for the movie, but directly let the protagonists consume their lives in various situations of committing crimes.
You must know that in the setting of the movie, once the life is exhausted, not only will it die in the game, but the soul in the real world will no longer exist. In this case, the protagonist group did not walk on thin ice to get the customs clearance treasure. After insisting on staying in a dangerous area, even just arguing and taking away the life of a companion?
Of course, this can also be attributed to "impulsiveness", but too much "temporary fever" brings about an extremely obvious sense of intentionality.
This kind of deliberate sense is impossible to create a real sense of crisis for the audience. Without a sense of crisis, the special effects and action scenes of the movie are really just frame-by-frame pictures, and the emotions of the audience cannot be brought into the film at all. inside.
deliberately laughing
As a standard commercial film, "Jumanji 2" is of course an indispensable part of the joke, and the two new members who are responsible for this task are the male protagonist's grandfather and his friend.
However, it is not an easy task for two elderly people in their 70s and 80s to play the role of "living treasures".
The setting of the movie is quite simple and rude. The two old people are set as long-term friends with estrangement. Through their various non-cooperation and various quarrels, they create a laugh.
However, using this endless and noisy way to create laughs is the lowest level approach . After all, the audience is here to watch the protagonists take risks, not to see the two old men holding tangerine peels and sesame seeds on the screen. In the past, you and I fight each other.
Moreover, we have already entered the game world, there may be life-threatening at any time, two elderly people still can not be vintage old grudges aside and in this case, but whenever you keep arguing, it is too deliberate, total Can't it be the so-called "impulsive" and "momentary fever"?
In addition, the movie also sets one of the elderly people because of his age, so he always speaks slowly, often unable to say a complete sentence for a long time, and activates the atmosphere of the film with the mode of lack of information and crisis. But this operation is also quite a failure.
The reason is very simple. Commercial films are fast-paced movies . The constant noise of the two old people has slowed down the progress of literary dramas. Setting one of them to speak slowly has also slowed down the rhythm of the entire movie, not to mention In the second half of the movie, the old man who was slow to speak suddenly could speak three sentences a second, and it was quite perfunctory to change the settings as soon as they were changed.
If the laughter is designed too deliberately, not only will the audience not find it funny, but from the viewing point of view, there will be a strong sense of embarrassment.
In fact, on closer inspection, most of the movies themselves will have individual plots that appear to be particularly deliberate.
However, if there is too much deliberateness, it will directly affect the quality of the film.
Therefore, when creating a script for a film and establishing a character setting, it should be "vaccinated" in advance to ensure that the storyline after the film is at least a natural feeling.
View more about Jumanji: The Next Level reviews
