It’s game on in the top DVD releases for March 17.
• “Jumanji: The Next Level”: The “Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle” gang has split up after high school, as have couple Spencer (Alex Wolff) and Martha (Morgan Turner). Home for the holidays and panicking about a holiday reunion with the group, not to mention longing for the confidence and romantic connection he had with Martha as the heroic Bravestone (Dwayne Johnson), Spencer re-enters Jumanji.
When he’s a no-show at brunch, the group decides to rescue Spencer from the game and heads back in themselves, with Spencer’s grandfather (Danny DeVito) and his grandfather’s ex-business partner (Danny Glover) inadvertently getting sucked in too. The team must find Spencer, but they also face a new game objective: to save Jumanji from drought by rescuing a special jewel.
The body swapping of the main characters into their game character counterparts is next level. Karen Gillan as human machine Ruby reprises Martha’s character, while Fridge (Ser’Darius Blain) ends up as the much-less athletically inclined cartographer Oberon (Jack Black). But it’s The Rock doing his best New York accent as DeVito and Kevin Hart as zoologist Mouse embodying the slow-talking Glover who completely steal the show.
“Hart’s nuanced mimicry of Glover is downright inspired, and the story offers up a few chances for the characters to avatar swap, showing off the actors’ abilities to embody the different jock/nerd/cheerleader/cantankerous grandpa personas,” wrote Tribune News Service critic Katie Walsh in her review. “Once again, this is a one-joke movie, but for the time being, that joke still has some tread on the tires, especially with such charming stars and some light innovation.”
Also on DVD
“Richard Jewell”: A security guard (Paul Walter Hauser) is accused of being the prime suspect in the Centennial Olympic Park bombing at the 1996 Atlanta Summer Olympics.
“Black Christmas”: A college student (Imogen Poots) and her sorority sisters seek revenge against a campus killer.
“A Hidden Life”: After refusing to fight for the Nazis in World War II, an Austrian farmer (August Diehl) faces extreme consequences.
“Abigail”: Amid closed borders from an epidemic, a girl (Tinatin Dalakishvili) discovers she has special powers while looking for her father. In Russian and English.
“Crashing: S3”: Comic Pete Holmes continues navigating the New York stand-up scene while staying on friends’ couches in the final season of the HBO sitcom.
“Superman: Red Son”: This animated take on the DC Comics character follows him as a Soviet hero.
“The Dustwalker”: Residents of a desert town begin transforming into murderous beings.
Digital HD
“Cats”: A clowder of Jellicle cats decide which one will venture to the Heaviside Layer and return to start a new life in this CGI musical directed by Tom Hooper and based on the stage musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber. Look for it on DVD and Blu-ray April 7.
“Seven Stages to Achieve Eternal Bliss”: A Los Angeles couple discovers that a cult is using their home for a suicide ritual. Kate Micucci, Sam Huntington and Taika Waititi star.
“Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker”: In the final installment of the nine-part epic space opera, Rey (Daisy Ridley), Finn (John Boyega) and Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac) lead the Resistance against Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) and the First Order after Palpataine (Ian McDiarmid) has returned. Also starring Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher. Out on DVD and Blu-ray March 31.
