Jumanji 4 Should Copy The Last Action Hero To Explain The Rock’s Role
Jumanji: The Next Level ended with an intriguing setup for Jumanji 4, which should take inspiration from Last Action Hero for The Rock’s character.
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Jumanji: The Next Level ended with an intriguing setup for Jumanji 4, which should take inspiration from Last Action Hero for The Rock’s character. When it was first announced that Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson would both produce and star in a new entry in the Jumanji franchise, many fans were skeptical. After all, the hit 1995 film starring late, great comedy legend Robin Williams is a beloved childhood treasure for many who grew up in the 1990s, and is now a source of fond nostalgia.
Thankfully, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle managed to both honor the Williams movie and carve out its own path forward, turning the classic board game into a video game, and updating the premise for modern times brilliantly. Not only was Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle a huge financial success, but it also got great reviews, and packed its run time with humor that almost always worked, as well as thrilling action sequences, and an overall fondness for video game tropes.
A big part of why Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle and its sequel Jumanji: The Next Level worked so well was The Rock’s lead performance as video game avatar Smolder Bravestone, who’s in turn inhabited by a player of the game. With Jumanji 4 set to blend the game world and real-life though, a change needs to be made in order to keep The Rock around, and the Arnold Schwarzenegger action/comedy Last Action Hero can point the way.
How Last Action Hero Can Explain The Rock’s Role In Jumanji 4
In Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle and Jumanji: The Next Level, The Rock appeared as the Smolder Bravestone avatar only within the game world, alternately inhabited by Spencer and his grandfather Eddie. While Jumanji 4 having the game world invade the real world is a logical move, and nods back to the original book and Robin Williams movie, it begs the question of why the in-game avatar actors The Rock, Karen Gillan, Kevin Hart, and Jack Black would need to appear at all, as Spencer and friends can now face down Jumanji’s dangers as themselves. Obviously though, there’s no way Sony makes Jumanji 4 without at least The Rock in a major role.
That’s where the meta action/comedy Last Action Hero comes in. In that underrated 1993 film, a boy who loves movies gets the chance to go inside one and spend time with his favorite cinematic action hero Jack Slater, played by Arnold Schwarzenegger. The twist is that Jack eventually heads out into the real world, where Arnold Schwarzenegger the actor actually exists, and Jack is shocked to learn that the rules are very different than the action movie fantasy land he’s used to living inside. A similar idea could work for The Rock, with not only the hazards from the Jumanji game world bleeding into reality, but the in-game avatar characters arriving too.
The Rock can actually play Smolder Bravestone, as he’s described in the game, only for Dr. Bravestone to head into battle with the enemies he usually handles easily, and discover that things work differently outside of Jumanji. Upon learning that he’s simply a video game character, Bravestone could even have an existential crisis, wondering what the point of everything is if he’s not real, and the success of his adventures is normally dictated by the player of the game. On a more upbeat note though, The Rock’s Bravestone could interact with Spencer and Eddie, feeling a kinship with them despite perhaps not first knowing why. To top things off, things could get really meta and establish that The Rock himself exists within Jumanji 4, and was used as the model for Bravestone’s character.
Link Source : https://screenrant.com/jumanji-4-rock-last-action-hero-role-copy-explained/