"Jumanji: Level One" is a 15-minute live action movie from 2021, January 2021 to be precise, which means that it's been almost half a year since its release. First of all, if you go to Youtube to the official channel where this was uploaded, you will maybe be as surprised as I was that it runs for 23 minutes and not 15 minutes as it says here on imdb. The truth is: It does run for 15 minutes. The remanining eight minutes are closing credits and a personal message from an actress that is part of this film. I agree that it is somewhat touching and also that it is telling that the cast donated their money, especially as these are people that are no big names and who have to fight to make a living as actors, but still these aee just additional aspects. We are here to watch and rate the movie and from my rating you can see that I did not like it too much overall. It's not a failure either, but I hoped it could be better. Then again, I am not too big on / familiar with the full feature Jumanji film(s), but yeah this one here is clearly trying to cash in on the popularity, especially as there was a new Jumanji film not too long ago. This one here takes place before the original movie(s) and that is always even more challenging in my opinion than a side story for example taking place during the film or a small sequel because a prequel means what you do here is supposed to be seen as the basis for a big blockbuster and there is no way for me to say that this one here is a success from this perspective.
Let's take a look at the basics too: The director here is Lance Kawas and he is more experienced than most other fan film directors, but it is by far not the first time his work is connected with much more famous films. Just take "The Deported". I am not too much in support of trying to cash in like this. More respect from me for Dylan Sides here. He is the writer and has also worked in several other departments on this movie. One would be cinematography. If you take a look at his career, then you will see that he has really worked in so many departments of film creation, but cinematography is the one where he has been the most prolific, also much more prolific than in terms of writing. As for the outcome here, it feels mostly mediocre. If I had to rate it as a fan film, I would aybe give another two stars, but this is not the ifmdb, so I have to go with general standards. I was not really won over by anything here. The actors weren't particularly good, the story was just minimally better. Maybe the visual aspects were still among the film's biggest strengths all in all, but even they were not mindblowing. Just okay given the budget you could say. So my final verdict here is that this is a film that does not really need to be seen by anybody except perhaps the very biggest Jumanji fans. Or I don't know, maybe those are the ones that should especially not see it. I still think it is a good cause and touching story in terms of what we find out about Liam and I hope they raised a lot of money from the hundreds of thousands of people who watched this, but in terms of the quality, i have to give a thumbs-down here. Not recommended.
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