You know that funny feeling you get in your stomach when you find out that one of your favorite movies is getting a sequel or reboot? Well, 2017 was a whole year’s worth of that feeling for me.

2017 was a year full of reboots and sequels including “Transformers: The Last Knight”, “Ghost in the Shell”, “The Mummy” and “It”—most of which weren’t successful. However, the end of 2017 saw a successful sequel to the 1995 classic starring Robin Williams, “Jumanji”.

“Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle” centers around the newly evolved Jumanji game. Four high school kids from different backgrounds come across an old video game console, get sucked into the video game, Jumanji, and become the adult avatars they chose. The teenagers discover that to get out of the game they must win. Each character only gets three lives and once their lives run out, they die in real life.

The avatars have a star studded cast featuring Jack Black, Karen Gillan and the comedic duo, Kevin Hart and Dwayne Johnson. Hart and Johnson were great as always, but I’d say the real stars of the show were Black and Gillan.

Gillan’s character Martha/Ruby Roundhouse was a nice change from Nebula in “Guardians of the Galaxy”. It was nice to see her in a role that was not quite so serious and see how well diverse she is as an actress.

Black absolutely killed it as Bethany/Professor Shelly Oberan. He was hilarious and it was great to see him back on the big screen again after such a long hiatus. I hope this is the start of his most recent comeback.

There were obviously some major differences between the original 1995 “Jumanji” and the 2017 sequel, the main point being the rating differences. The original movie was rated PG and the new version is rated PG-13. While the 1995 version was a fun family feature that people of all ages could watch, the 2017 version was not. With the differences in ratings, I feel like the creators of the movie were trying to say that the movie has “aged” 22 years with its original audience.

One thing I liked that was kept consistent was the original basis of the game. In both versions of the movie, Jumanji introduces the premise of the game by stating, “A game for those who seek to find, a way to leave their world behind.” It helps tie in the original movie along with getting an Alan Parrish reference in the movie (if you don’t know who Alan Parrish is watch the original movie).

Although the film wasn’t quite as kid friendly as many people would have like it to be, it is still a well rounded movie. Everything from the screenplay, score and actors came together to create a fun, hilarious adventure that the whole family can see—well maybe not your five-year-old cousin who’s actually your third cousin on your mom’s side.

Overall the movie was great and quite honestly, I want to go see it again.

Rating: 5/5 stars