DUNE: PART TWO Review

Denis Villeneuve's Grand and Gorgeous Epic is as Insightful about Sincerity and Strategy as it is Engaging on the Broad Levels of a Big-Budget Studio Blockbuster.

ARGYLLE Review

Matthew Vaughn has Officially become a Director of Diminishing Returns with this Overstuffed and Laughably Corny Slog of a Spy Caper.

MEAN GIRLS Review

This Trip back to North Shore High Justifies itself by still being Sharp in its Observations of Vacuousness.

AMERICAN FICTION Review

Writer/Director Cord Jefferson’s Feature Debut Splits the Difference Between Searing Satire and Emotional Family Drama Coming out a Winner in Both Respects.

POOR THINGS Review

Emma Stone is Daring and Mark Ruffalo is Hilarious in this Surreal Fever Dream of Philosophy and Attempting to Understand our Nature through Unorthodox Methods.

Teaser Trailer for Martin Scorsese’s THE IRISHMAN

In what felt both like an uncertainty and an inevitability legendary director Martin Scorsese and one of his most notable collaborators, Robert De Niro, have once again re-teamed with one another to produce what is not only a mob/gangster drama, but to tell a decades-spanning story that follows Frank Sheeran (De Niro), a hitman whose actions changed the course of American history. Based on Charles Brandt's 2003 novel, I Heard You Paint Houses, the film chronicles the meeting of Sheeran and Jimmy Hoffa (played in the film by Al Pacino) and is based on interviews Brandt had with Sheeran over the course of five years detailing how he handled more than twenty-five hits for the mob, and for his friend Hoffa. Though I haven't read the book, I'll certainly be looking into it prior to seeing the film as Sheeran undoubtedly shared genuinely important and fascinating insights about both many a famous murders as well as this infamous chapter in US history and how intertwined it was with the mafia. And while it is nice to see Scorsese and De Niro reuniting with one another as well as including Pacino to boot the real draw here and who Netflix and Scorsese let drive this first, teaser trailer is that of the one and only Joe Pesci. Pesci hasn't had a substantial role in a film for nearly a decade with his last screen appearance being the little seen 2010 Taylor Hackford film, Love Ranch. Seeing and more impactful even, hearing, Pesci once again as he sets up the first lines of communication between Sheeran and Hoffa triggers immediate chills being experienced. Much has also been made of the rather hefty price tag on the film (a cool $160 million) much of which was attributed to the de-aging process applied to the three screen legends mentioned thus far given this is a story that, as was stated earlier, spans decades. It's difficult to even see where this technology comes in as far as the footage in the trailer save for the final, revealing shot that puts an emphasis on De Niro's face, but there is also this weird disconnect with De Niro's roles and his real life as it's difficult to sometimes remember that De Niro doesn't exactly look the way he did in Goodfellas anymore even if that's how he's been frozen in our memory as appearing. With the film premiering as the opening night film at this year's New York Film Festival on September 27th it's hard to imagine this won't be a major awards contender this year. Here's to oping! The Irishman also stars Harvey Keitel, Ray Romano, Bobby Cannavale, Anna Paquin, Stephen Graham, Stephanie Kurtzuba, Jack Huston, Kathrine Narducci, Jesse Plemons, Domenick Lombardozzi, Paul Herman, Gary Basaraba, Marin Ireland and will open in theaters and be available on Netflix sometime this fall.

Tavern Talk: Video Review - ONCE UPON A TIME IN...HOLLYWOOD

In just nineteen days of global release Disney's photorealistic re-imagining of The Lion King has already crossed the $1 billion mark. Additionally, the $175 million Jon Favreau picture has earned $360 million of that billion in domestic dollars after only eleven days in theaters. For comparison's sake, 2016's The Jungle Book finished its theatrical run with $966 million worldwide. To boot, this makes The Lion King Disney's fourth movie this year along with Captain Marvel, Avengers: Endgame and Aladdin to pass $1 billion and both Frozen II and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker are still to come. With $917 million as of Sunday, Toy Story 4 looks like it might just barely miss the boat. Of course, while it's been clear for some time now that there is no stopping Disney this year the big story this weekend actually belonged to Sony Pictures who produced the latest film from Quentin Tarantino as Once Upon a Time in...Hollywood-a 160-minute, R-rated drama consisting of more dialogue than action-earned $41 million making it the largest opening weekend for the director, topping the $38 million ($46 million adjusted for inflation) opening of Inglourious Basterds a decade ago. Opening day audiences gave the film a "B" CinemaScore and this combined with the fact the film was actually down 20% from Friday to Saturday and 16% from Saturday to Sunday will make for an interesting conversation when it comes to the kind of legs this $90 million production will have over the next few weeks (months?). It is also of interest how Hollywood will play overseas given this is such a geographically distinct title, but as Sony supposedly spent an additional $110 million on the film's marketing campaign the studio is essentially looking to recoup $200 million on the project meaning a strong overseas haul will be necessary. Tarantino's latest will open in Germany, France and the United Kingdom on August 16th with those being the three markets outside of the US that consistently yield the biggest results for QT. Once more for comparison's sake, Django Unchained earned $263 million of its $425 worldwide cume overseas while Inglourious Basterds earned $201 million of its $321 million worldwide take in global dollars. Given Hollywood doesn't open for a few more weeks in those major global markets it's hard to tell where this thing is headed, but given this is Tarantino's priciest film to date it will need to remain consistent in earnings while the film itself takes a detour from those aforementioned revenge fantasy narratives. Time will tell, but until then be sure to follow the official TAVERN TALK by Initial Reaction YouTube channel as well as on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter where you can find a new review (or reviews) each week!

ONCE UPON A TIME IN...HOLLYWOOD Review

I've been trying for over a week now to figure out exactly why Once Upon a Time in...Hollywood, the latest opus from auteur Quentin Tarantino, hit me the way it did. As someone who's never visited California or more specifically, Hollywood, and as someone who wasn't born until nearly two decades after the year in which the film takes place there were no personal nostalgic ties to what is very clearly a very nostalgic movie for its writer and director. I love the movies as in "the movies", sure, both for their fascinating behind the scenes processes as well as certain aspects of the business and I adore the idea of crafting this love letter to a bygone era that, in many ways, is reoccurring at this very moment even if the players are very different in the similarly circumstanced game. Any piece of work that provides insight into any aspect or era of the movie business is typically something I'm game for, granted, but even my affinity for films and television shows produced in the late fifties through to the end of the sixties is low and wouldn't justify the instinctively adoring reaction these impossibly detailed re-creations of such receive and no doubt deserve. There is plenty to like and appreciate within the massive two hour and forty-minute runtime Tarantino has assembled with his latest, but it is difficult to pinpoint what exactly it is that occurs within those (nearly) three hours that not only made me long once more for days consisting of more innocence, but also genuinely made me love what I was watching and want to remain in this world he was enchanting us with. After a week of mulling over the film though, of continuing to go back to certain scenes, countless performance moments and a hundred other facets I hadn't yet considered day after day the bigger picture came to be that it wasn't necessarily any one thing in what will from now on be referred to as OUaTiH, but more it was the effect each of these elements had on one another; the meticulous re-creation of 1969 informed and enhanced the performances of these fictional characters which were in turn heightened in the context of the film by the real-life events that Tarantino weaved through his narrative so as to create a sense of familiarity while still holding tight to the destination he's driving towards. Ultimately, this stands as one of Tarantino's best, most introspective works as it delivers the feeling one wants to leave the theater with after having experienced a Tarantino flick while the experience in and of itself is something of an unexpected and surprisingly soulful one.

First Trailer for ZOMBIELAND: DOUBLE TAP

Despite the fact it feels like we should have maybe received a sequel to Zombieland five or six years ago I remember feeling so bowled over by that first original feature to capitalize on the popularity of Walking Dead that I'm just happy they were able to get everyone back together for a sequel at all. This includes director Ruben Fleischer who made such a strong feature debut with the original Zombieland that I'm always optimistic his next film might deliver on that promise even if everything since has yielded fair to middling results. And while it's kind of crazy Zombieland: Double Tap exists in today's world given the caliber of the cast and the fact Emma Stone had seemingly resigned from broad comedies it's nice to see the ole' gang back together and each of them at least appear to be having a good time. In this decade-later follow-up (though it still remains to be seen if it's been a decade in the world of the movie as well) Jesse Eisenberg's Columbus, Woody Harrelson's Tallahasse, Stone's Wichita, and Abigail Breslin's Little Rock move to the American heartland as they face off against evolved zombies, fellow survivors, and the growing pains of the snarky makeshift family. While this new trailer largely looks like more of the same in a new setting it's kind of hard to expect anything more than that from a ten year-later sequel set around a zombie apocalypse. More importantly is the fact Fleischer and screenwriters Dave Callaham (Wonder Woman 1984) along with Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick (Zombieland, Deadpool, Deadpool 2) seem to have been creatively invested in the property and have come up with a few gags that appear to deliver in the same way as the gags from the first while not relying on throwbacks to jokes from that first film. That said, Bill Murray is on the cast list for this thing along with Dan Aykroyd, so make of that what you will. More than anything though, I'll go into Zombieland 2 with the hope of simply having a good time with some old friends; I'm not expecting this thing to break any new ground or even be the funniest film I see all year, but if it has a good time with a premise and cast who we know can deliver as much then the wait will have been well worth it. Zombieland: Double Tap also stars Zoey Deutch, Rosario Dawson, Luke Wilson, Thomas Middleditch, Avan Jogia and opens on October 18th, 2019.

Tavern Talk: Video Review - THE LION KING

Disney continues its box office domination this summer with their re-make of The Lion King as director Jon Favreau's photorealistic take on Disney's 1994 animated classic pulled in an impressive $191 million in its first weekend making this the first weekend of the last six weekends to top the last year's total-The Lion King going one further and actually surpassing the total gross of this weekend last year all by itself. Not to be stopped, Disney also celebrated the fact Avengers: Endgame finally surpassed Avatar to become the highest grossing worldwide release of all-time. Avatar held the worldwide record gross for ten years, but with Endgame's global total passing $2.79 billion it now holds the title-that is, until Disney likely re-releases Avatar once more prior to the debut of James Cameron's numerous Pandora-set sequels. This weekend was largely about The Lion King though, as the film delivered a record opening weekend for the month of July, besting the previous record holder, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2  with $169 million, as well as becoming the second largest opening of the year thus far and the seventh largest opening of all-time. And though the majority of critics were lukewarm on the film (our reviewers fell in the enjoyable if not completely satisfying range) it seemed Favreau and company's effort was enough to please the masses as opening day audiences gave the film an "A" CinemaScore. Looking at Aladdin's current run and given that film is still ranking in the weekend top ten, The Lion King could potentially reach over $687 million domestic should it match Aladdin's current multiplier. Should it decide to hue closer to 2017's Beauty and the Beast though, a finish closer to $535 million is likely. That's something of a wide range, but either way this is good news for the $260 million production as, internationally, the film added $269 million this weekend for an international total of $346 million and a global cume that now stands at almost $600 million after only a weekend in wide release (it opened in China last week where it already grossed $97.5 million). Next weekend, we'll see if the latest from Quentin Tarantino, Once Upon a Time in...Hollywood, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt can keep this winning streak alive. As always, be sure to follow the official TAVERN TALK by Initial Reaction YouTube channel as well as on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter where you can find a new review (or reviews) each week!

First Trailer for TOP GUN: MAVERICK Starring Tom Cruise

It has been some time since I've sat down and actually watched Toy Scott's 1986 action/drama centered around students at the United States Navy's elite fighter school who competed to be best in the class, with one daring young pilot learning a few things not taught in the classroom and yet I'm still anxious to see how that once daring young pilot has evolved in what will be thirty-four years since that original next summer. Tom Cruise is obviously reprising his role in the long-awaited follow-up to Top Gun, but after Scott's untimely death in 2012 it seemed the sequel became even more of an uncertainty. It's kind of amazing that everything aligned in order for this film to have come to exist, but here we are and less than a year from now everyone who loved all the music, motorcyclin' and volleyballin' of the original will seemingly be in for another treat as director Joseph Kosinski (who worked with Cruise on Oblivion, but has also made Tron: Legacy and the severely under seen Only the Brave) has included all of this and more in his follow-up. As penned by Peter Craig (12 Strong), Justin Marks (Counterpoint), and Eric Warren Singer (American Hustle), with a little help from long-time Cruise collaborator, Christopher McQuarrie, who was brought in after the fact to work on the script next to nothing is known about the plot of the film, but what we do know is that Val Kilmer will return as Iceman, Miles Teller will be playing the role of the now-adult son of Anthony Edwards' Goose, and that Glen Powell so impressed producers during his audition for the role of Goose's son that they created a new, different character just for him. Next to these scant details, this first trailer for the film gives us a real glimpse at the tone and aesthetic Kosinski has captured and while the imagery is familiar it possesses a modern sheen-especially in the aerial shots that place us right alongside Cruise's Maverick in the cockpit-that give it that Kosinski trademark look. Cruise also seems to be somewhat relishing getting the opportunity to play a more hardened version of this character as this clip hints at a narrative concerning a man unable to move on and a world that is set to leave him behind. I can't wait to see this thing in IMAX. Top Gun: Maverick also stars Jennifer Connelly, Jon Hamm, Lewis Pullman, Ed Harris and opens on June 26th, 2020.

Official Trailer for IT: CHAPTER TWO

Scoring the largest opening weekend for an R-rated movie ever, then continuing to perform week after week ultimately taking in over $700 million worldwide, the runaway success of 2017's IT gave director Andy Muschietti’s sequel the luxury of an A-list ensemble and plenty of time to develop and shoot it.  Jessica Chastain, James McAvoy, and Bill Hader lead the cast of IT: Chapter Two as the sequel picks up with the characters from the first film as adults twenty-seven years later. While not too much is known about the follow-up, we obviously know from the book and previous mini-series that a devastating phone call brings "The Losers Club" back together and back to Derry, Maine. In speaking with Entertainment Weekly Pennywise himself, Bill SkarsgÃ¥rd, stated that, "The arc of the first movie is that he, for the first time, experiences fear himself,” which could certainly mean the character might go in one of two drastically different directions, but it seems rather than sulk back into the darkness from which he came Pennywise will be seeking revenge as SkarsgÃ¥rd reiterated that this encounter with fear, "fuels hatred and anger towards the kids, who are now adults, so I think there might be an even more vicious Pennywise.” And given some of the voiceover in this new, final trailer for the epic horror film it seems this is nothing short of accurate. While I've never read Stephen King's novel and only saw the 1990 miniseries in the lead-up to the release of the 2017 film, these two films seemingly set themselves apart from your typical trash horror flicks from the get-go as Muschietti’s objective is aimed at being more illustrious than is typically seen in the horror genre and in pulling off this level of grandeur really well in that first film it only creates more reason to be excited for what this final product might deliver thematically. Along with SkarsgÃ¥rd, McAvoy, Chastain and Hader IT: Chapter Two will also star Javier Botet, Xavier Dolan, James Ransone, Andy Bean, Troy James, Jay Ryan, Jake Weary, Jess Weixler as well as seeing the return of Jaeden Lieberher, Finn Wolfhard, Jack Dylan Grazer, Sophia Lillis, Chosen Jacobs, and Jeremy Ray Taylor. The film is scheduled to open September 6th, 2019.

Tavern Talk: Video Review - STUBER

In what will be the last lull week of the summer until mid-August or so, Spider-Man: Far From Home repeated as the number one movie at the box office bringing in $45.3 million, for a 51% drop as the film presently sits at just over $280 million domestic. The film also added $100 million overseas this past weekend, for a global total that is now just shy of $850 million or $150 million away from a billion after only seventeen days in release. Far from Home's current international total of $570 million makes it the highest grossing Spider-Man movie internationally, besting Spider-Man 3's $555 million overseas total as well. Disney and Pixar's Toy Story 4 held in the second place spot for the second weekend in a row, dipping only 39% in its fourth week of release for a $20.94 million haul. This gives the film a domestic total thus far of nearly $350 million, now making it the fifth largest Pixar release of all-time domestically. Internationally, Toy Story 4 added $48.1 million for a $427 million total and a global tally that has now topped $775 million. It is in the third and fourth place spots that we finally get to the weekend's new releases as Paramount's R-rated alligator thriller Crawl, debuted with a somewhat surprising $12 million. As of today, Crawl has likely surpassed its budget domestically with a total of $13.3 million as of Monday on an estimated budget of $13.5 million. The film has also opened in a few markets internationally and has garnered nearly $5 million for a global total just over $18 million. Given the surprisingly good word of mouth on this one I'm eager to check it out and see how much fun it is. In our review this week, we discussed Disney's release of Fox's R-rated comedy Stuber which unfortunately stumbled in fourth place as it now sits at just over $8 million on a reported budget of $16 million. The film received a "B" CinemaScore from opening day audiences which could translate to something akin to legs as the broad comedy won't really have any competition in the genre until August 16th's Good Boys (unless you count Hobbs & Shaw), but by that point the theater count on this thing will be so dismal it almost doesn't matter. Internationally, Stuber opened in nine markets to almost $3 million placing it just shy of $12 million globally. As always, be sure to follow the official TAVERN TALK by Initial Reaction YouTube channel as well as on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter where you can find a new review (or reviews) each week!

First Trailer for HUSTLERS Starring Jennifer Lopez

The first trailer for STX Films' Hustlers starring Jennifer Lopez, Crazy Rich Asians' Constance Wu, Keke Palmer and Riverdale's Lili Reinhart has arrived and outside of being known as the movie where J.Lo plays a stripper this is also writer/director Lorene Scafaria's highest profile project since her very good, but little seen 2012 film, Seeking a Friend for the End of the World. The director also made 2015's The Meddler with Susan Sarandon and Rose Byrne which I recall having to miss when attending that year's Toronto International Film Festival and never following-up with later, but that is all beside the point as Scafaria has now adapted Jessica Pressler's New York Magazine article “The Hustlers at Scores” and rounded up quite the all-star cast to bring to life this outlandish true story. The film tells the story of a group of strippers who band together to turn the tables on their Wall Street clients, and made bank in the process. Set in the late 2000's in New York City in the wake of the financial crisis, Scafaria's film will deal explicitly with the toll it took on this group of dancers who relied on their wall street clientele for big pay days. In this Robin Hood-like story, Lopez plays the ringleader of this group who take their plans of getting their full cut a little too far. Now, I'm sure the film will get a lot of attention for the fact it has Lopez twirling around on a pole in skimpy outfits, not to mention the rest of the cast, but having a woman at the helm of the project will seemingly only amplify the point of how each sex has to hustle in their own ways given the body they were born with and these women simply had to out-hustle a different type of hustler than themselves; the type who couldn't resist a body "with the sort of waist-to-hip ratio scientists have concluded affects men like a drug." In short, this very much looks to be a gangster drama of the Scorsese variety, but where the gangsters just also happen to be strippers and while I feel a little sorry for Andrea Berloff's The Kitchen which has similar aspirations and opens a month earlier it seems Hustlers has more of a hook that might get the buzz buzzing a little bit louder. Hustlers also stars Cardi B, Lizzo, Julia Stiles, Madeline Brewer, Stormi Maya, Frank Whaley, Usher Raymond, and opens on September 13th, 2019.

Tavern Talk: Video Review - SPIDER-MAN: FAR FROM HOME & MIDSOMMAR

Dropping movies in the middle of the week to account for a holiday and in turn, holiday crowds, always shakes things up a bit and this summer the box office needed a little shaking up after a series of franchise disappointments in June. Of course, it goes without much knowledge of the film industry that July was likely going to open with a franchise addition as well and one would be correct as the big release of last week was director Jon Watts' follow-up to 2017's Spider-Man: Homecoming, but more importantly-the first Marvel Cinematic Universe film after April's Avengers: Endgame. In Far From Home, the MCU deals with the fallout of Endgame in as skillfully a way as they probably could have-maybe even eschewing the more serious ramifications for now as many of the burning questions fans had after Endgame are resolved in quick bits of teen comedy. Saving more of that for my eventual review though, let's talk about how the film did financially. Going wide last Tuesday, July 2nd, Far From Home began its run with a $91 million Tuesday to Thursday haul while topping that over the traditional three-day weekend with an almost $93 million Friday to Sunday total. This gave the film a six-day start of over $185 million domestically to which it has since earned an additional $10 million while internationally, the webslinger delivered $244 million from 66 markets last weekend after opening in a few markets the week before for an overseas cume of $392 million and a global tally that now sits atop $588 million. This domestic performance accounted for the largest six-day opening for a Tuesday release on top of the film already delivering the largest Tuesday opening day ever, so...in other words, Marvel continues its streak of critically and commercially successful film as Far From Home also garnered a 90% on RottenTomatoes. Finishing just outside the top five was the other big release last week in A24's Midsommar, delivering $7.35 million for Tuesday to Thursday time frame, $6.56 over the traditional weekend, while finishing with nearly $11 million over the full five-day frame. While our reviewers here at TAVERN TALK by Initial Reaction both gave the film a superior five stars, Midsommar received a "C+" CinemaScore from opening day audiences, which-while not great-is actually an improvement over writer/director Ari Aster's Hereditary, which enjoyed a solid box office multiplier last June. The nearly two and a half hour runtime likely doesn't help with how many screenings people have the option of attending either, but Hereditary garnered some solid word of mouth over the course of its run and it will be interesting to see what the discussion around Midsommar will be and if it will factor into the film's box office at all. As always, be sure to follow the official Initial Reaction YouTube channel as well as on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter where you can find a new review (or reviews) each week!

SPIDER-MAN: FAR FROM HOME Review

Jon Watts' second Spider-Man film, Spider-Man: Far From Home, has a lot of things going on, but just as Thanos preached in Avengers: Infinity War, what keeps everything intact and moving at a sustainable pace in the Marvel Cinematic Universe in a post-Mad Titan world is, somewhat ironically I guess, the fact Watts and the screenwriters are able to keep everything "perfectly balanced". What is most interesting in slating the sequel to Watts' 2017 film as the immediate successor to Avengers: Endgame though, is that it immediately signaled the type of tone Marvel Studios and "showrunner" Kevin Feige would be addressing the fallout of the monumental events that any average viewer of the MCU knew were coming. The fact remaining that while Endgame concludes on something of an uplifting note for Steve Rogers the ramifications for many other characters were nowhere near as...complete. There were countless questions that required the attention of the creators behind the curtain: what is the state of organized religion in a post-snap world? How did those who'd gotten re-married in the five years since the snap and weren't polygamists deal with the fact their husband and/or wife just showed back up one day? If kids not snapped away aged five years and presumably continued their schooling, why would they still be in the same grade as their counterparts that did "blip" away? As Betty Brant (Angourie Rice) puts it at the beginning of Far From Home, "it's been a long, dramatic, somewhat confusing road," and while the subject of our review today might be intended to bridge the gap and help audiences, "move on...to a new phase in our lives," the fact remains that this "bridging of the gap" could have been handled in a multitude of ways, but for one reason or another Feige and co. decided to place this responsibility on the back of their friendly neighborhood Spider-Man and thus the question remains the same: why? Why is Tom Holland's sixteen year-old Peter Parker, the youngest avenger, the one to bear this responsibility? It all comes back to that aspect of tone and knowing what consequences to take seriously and place weight in while knowing which to laugh off; Watts' high school comedies dressed up as super hero flicks make an ideal vehicle to blend the heart and the humor and it doesn't hurt that the film becomes a pretty good "Spider-Man" movie along the way as well.

Official Trailer for JUMANJI: THE NEXT LEVEL

In a not-so-surprising turn, Sony has released the first, full length trailer for the sequel to their Christmas 2017 smash, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, the day before Spider-Man: Far From Home officially opens. Given Welcome to the Jungle is Sony's all-time top domestic earner and the film earned an insane $962 million worldwide two years ago it was a no-brainer the studio would pump out a sequel as soon as it could, but while this may feel slightly rushed in terms of attempting to capitalize on this surprise sequel, the studio was able to gather back all of the original cast members as well as director Jake Kasdan with the most surprising part being that the two (returning) screenwriters, Scott Rosenberg and Jeff Pinkner, have seemingly cooked up a story that will change things up enough from the previous film while still utilizing the aspects that made that film work so well in the first place. That is to say, Sony can seemingly keep this franchise going as long as they want given the avatars are the stars of the film and not the human counterparts who become trapped in said board/video game. To boot, the idea of having Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart, Jack Black, and Karen Gillan being able to adopt different personalities in each movie depending on who gets sucked into the game is a great concept and one the studio and filmmakers could have a lot of fun with over the course of a few more sequels. In Jumanji: The Next Level, our real-world friends from the previous film return to Jumanji to rescue one of their own but discover that nothing is as they expect. The players need to brave parts unknown, from arid deserts to snowy mountains, in order to escape the world's most dangerous game. Of course, the hook here is that Hart and Johnson are no longer playing polar opposite high school kids, but two curmudgeonly old friends in the form of Danny DeVito and Danny Glover. Needless to say, Johnson and Hart doing impressions of DeVito and Glover is the last thing I thought I needed in my life, but after today I need it more than most things. This should be another fun adventure flick with a strong re-watchability factor and I can't wait to see what Kasdan and crew have in store this Christmas. Jumanji: The Next Level also sees the return of Alex Wolff, Madison Iseman, Morgan Turner, Ser'Darius Blain, Nick Jonas, Rhys Darby, and Colin Hanks while Awkwafina and Dania Ramirez join the cast as the film is set to open on December 13th, 2019.