Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (2017)

Matt (00:01:18):

Hello and welcome to Load Bearing Beams. The summer of Rock rolls down the hill, along its path. It’s Rocky Path. I’m Matt, the Rock Stokes.

Laci (00:01:28):

I’m Laci, the Johnson Roth.

Matt (00:01:30):

Nice to be here with you. Laci the Johnson. Thank you. My beloved wife to talk another movie starring the Rock, starring Dwayne Johnson. Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle.

Laci (00:01:40):

Thank you.

Matt (00:01:41):

You’re welcome.

Laci (00:01:41):

Thank you for welcoming me.

Matt (00:01:42):

Yeah,

Laci (00:01:43):

That was a movie. No, I don’t mean it like that. It’s perfectly fine movie.

Matt (00:01:47):

It’s a perfectly fine movie.

Laci (00:01:48):

Did it drag ass like for 20 minutes though?

Matt (00:01:52):

Did it drag ass

Laci (00:01:55):

Some? I still find it very funny. Look at us getting right into it. You know what? There’s a fucking formula to this shit. Why don’t you walk me through it?

Matt (00:02:03):

Okay, so if you’re just a giant fan of Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle. We are Load Bearing Beams. We do a movie podcast where we break down a movie, we make fun of it, we celebrate it, et cetera, et cetera.

Laci (00:02:13):

Analyze.

Matt (00:02:15):

We’re married, so we say inappropriate things about each other. It’s okay, don’t cancel us or do who cares?

Laci (00:02:20):

Oh, you really run the gamut.

Matt (00:02:22):

But during the summer we’re covering nine of the films of Dwayne Johnson. Track the rise and the fall, and I think that we are now in our six episode out of nine in this mini series, and this I think is the apex in terms of commercial achievement. This was an enormous movie, made a billion dollars. It played like a Marvel movie.

Laci (00:02:40):

Damn.

Matt (00:02:41):

Like back when Marvel movies were at their height.

Laci (00:02:43):

Jack Black does though have some kind of witchcraft. I feel like he does this with movies Box Up. I mean with fucking the Mario Brothers movie and then Fucking Bullshit. That is Minecraft. Yes, the word I was about to say, I was trying to help you out. Fuck sake. I’m just saying he just makes gold out of kids. Love him.

Matt (00:03:06):

I don’t remember who this was, but One Box Office analyst pointed this out that Jack Black secretly is like a big star among kids.

Laci (00:03:12):

Yes, and

Matt (00:03:13):

A big driver, a big mover. I

Laci (00:03:14):

Don’t think it’s a secret, but also because there’s a nostalgia factor and a coolness factor for those kids’ parents that really bridges the gap. He’s a transcending kind of guy.

Matt (00:03:27):

I guess this also had, I wonder how true this is the people who were nostalgic for the nineties movie, a movie that How

Laci (00:03:34):

The fuck would be

Matt (00:03:35):

Nostalgic? I didn’t care about

Laci (00:03:36):

For that Fucking Rag. God damn is that movie depressing? And this is the first time watching this that I kind of connected the dots of like, oh, there’s a really fucking sad, depressing, underlining story here too that has always bothered me about the original JI for a kid’s movie. It is heavy unnecessarily. So

Matt (00:03:57):

You are the one who usually has those ideas about movies. Like, oh, I didn’t want to watch that movie. It was too sad. I don’t, but that is Jumanji. I remember feeling that way as a kid kind of morose about that movie.

Speaker 5 (00:04:06):

Yes,

Matt (00:04:07):

That movie’s about a kid who dies and a dad who dies or beats him or something. I don’t want to think

Laci (00:04:11):

About that. It’s a sad monkey boy.

Matt (00:04:14):

And so I only watched it once and never wanted to do it again until

Laci (00:04:17):

It’s not fun.

Matt (00:04:20):

And I remember we did an episode about it in 20 18, 1 of our earliest episodes as a listener choice, but

Laci (00:04:27):

Robin Williams would just sneak in some bummers every now and then. He could make a bummer movie. It doesn’t mean it wasn’t good, but there is a certain amount of levity you expect with him. And it doesn’t always on the whole make it more palatable. If he’s funny sometimes in the movie,

Matt (00:04:44):

He was a very tragic person, and obviously you can say this in retrospect because he took his own life, but I feel like even when he was making movies at the height of his powers in the nineties, there was something a little very sad and for Lauren about him and he’s covering it up by being the craziest, most outrageous persona he can be. And I think that kids picked, I don’t know, it was the perfect thing that all kids in America wanted at the time. For some reason

Laci (00:05:12):

He was Jack Black. We just accidentally uncovered this.

Matt (00:05:14):

You’re right, you’re right. Well,

Laci (00:05:16):

I mean Jack Black is way more gregarious and upbeat and not gregarious. That’s not the right word. Light. I don’t see a darkness in Jack Black, but he’s a weird adult that has the energy of a toddler. So kids are just attached. Both of them transcend decades of entertaining people.

Speaker 1 (00:05:40):

It’s

Laci (00:05:40):

Just a very interesting thing. I mean, people can love Gene Wilder, but kids aren’t just clamoring for the next Gene Wilder flick. I feel like everything Martin, no. Help me again. I just lost his name. Jeanie, come on.

Matt (00:05:57):

Robin Williams.

Laci (00:05:57):

There we go. Robin Williams made, I feel like every kid at least tried to watch it, even the bird cage way before. I was too young old too, when I was too young to really understand what I was even watching. He was like, well, this guy’s in it. It’s a kid’s movie.

Matt (00:06:11):

So well, I guess we kind of jumped ahead and talked about our histories with Jumanji, but bringing it back to the Rock, the height of his, I think this is when maybe the story started coming out about this guy wants to be president and he might be the most popular person in the universe, like universal approval ratings. Maybe it was the height right here with Jumanji.

Laci (00:06:32):

I think a little bit too much credit was put on the Rock on this one. I think Jack Black might and Kevin Hart might’ve got the short end of this. I think they just happened to pick three people with huge audiences and they converged here.

Matt (00:06:44):

Well, he’s the lead of the movie. Fine. He’s the main face on the poster, first build, and he gets to launch his own brand new franchise. No Vin Diesel in Sight and lots of other stuff he’s doing is hitting as well. Things are going well with the Vast and Furious franchise. He has these other movies like What? Don’t remember. But these are the boom times, the peak, the height. But it’s interesting to cover this in a continuum with other recent movies we’ve covered where we thought he’s really good in pain and gain where he is a supporting player in the movie. And also what we’ve said his best acting performances have in common is him being a vulnerable and sort of scared person, A person uncomfortable living in the skin of this macho hero,

Laci (00:07:37):

Which in this movie is the literal that

Matt (00:07:40):

This

Laci (00:07:40):

Is the first time it’s literal.

Matt (00:07:41):

So

Laci (00:07:41):

Interesting. And it works again, he’s great as vulnerable, as reluctantly, huge

Matt (00:07:47):

And gets to be part of the team, an essential part of this team. The movie wouldn’t work without all four of these people, but ultimately just, this is five.

Laci (00:07:58):

It ends up being five. Matt, don’t you do that to see Mr. Seaplane? Hank Hank Williams,

Matt (00:08:05):

He’s the,

Laci (00:08:05):

His name Thomas Hank’s son. I can’t think of his name.

Matt (00:08:09):

Who becomes Colin Hanks? You’re talking about Nick Jonas the fucking,

Laci (00:08:12):

Is that a Jonas? Is that a Jonas? Alright,

Matt (00:08:15):

The Art Garfunkel of ine. I was here too. He’s not one of the four. I don’t consider him one of the four.

Laci (00:08:21):

Well, the game specifically says he’s the missing piece. That’s true.

Matt (00:08:25):

That’s true. But yeah, maybe the perfect one-two punch of a thing that is required of a successful Dwayne Johnson vehicle. And I saw this movie in theaters, had a lot of fun with it, I remember. And yeah,

Laci (00:08:42):

You took our kid and came back with the penis joke and then I had to sing it.

Matt (00:08:46):

Martha, come look at my penis. Martha, look at my penis. The kid was seven years old at the time, kept saying that, Martha, come look at my penis. And we were like, ha, ha ha. I’m still laughing. Yeah, it’s hilarious. Oh my God, you guys, there’s literally a penis attached to my body right now. Martha, come look at my penis.

Speaker 5 (00:09:02):

No thanks,

Matt (00:09:03):

But the world had Jumanji fever and it was a giant hit and I had a lot of goodwill to it and revisiting it, it’s fine,

Laci (00:09:09):

But I will say the individual performances are good. I just think the movie had a few too many. It’s a video game, so there’s going to be different challenges they have to get through and just that I know there’s going to be another beat and another beat or they’re going to make it another beat. I’m already bored waiting for those moments, but there’s great performances across all four people. I think moments at least

Matt (00:09:32):

They’re great. These four guys are great. The Rock is maybe the fourth best of the central of people of

Laci (00:09:40):

I would agree to that. I agree. I mean Jack Black is electric and bravo on finding an okay reason to be a effeminate this way if you’re not actually a gay man. But his performance is so new. I didn’t expect it to be nuanced. I forgot. It’s also kind of serious and he really leans into inhabiting it being a teenage girl and not just being one thing.

Matt (00:10:04):

He is so committed

Laci (00:10:05):

And

Matt (00:10:06):

That’s what I really admire about

Laci (00:10:07):

The performance. Yes. Because

Matt (00:10:08):

When he starts talking, really this is a joke, but no, no, no, you sit with it and this is a real person speaking in that voice.

Laci (00:10:16):

Right, right. This is the way that that person would have mannerisms. It’s like he studied the actress so that

Matt (00:10:22):

They all do a pretty good job of echoing the mannerisms of the kid actors or is probably reversed. Or Jake Kazen, the director, did a good job of keeping continuity of physical attributes, physical performances between the sets of actors.

Laci (00:10:39):

Oh, that’s what I was saying is I didn’t remember that they stuck to their actual names, which of course that’s makes the most sense. The only name they keep saying over and over is Brave Stone because it’s a funny name and because he literally needs to be brave the whole time. And that’s his whole thing is that kid’s not brave, but you really start to settle in to No, these people are not what I’m seeing. They’re the people I was seeing before. Because the use of Bethany and Martha, it is effective that you can settle into seeing something completely different but experiencing it something different. Smart stuff. Insert smart things where I just made words.

Matt (00:11:17):

If there’s a thing that I think that the thing that suffers for me is that this is so clearly just a comedy and they got a comedy director, but because we don’t make comedies anymore and a comedy won’t be a big movie, it has to be put awkwardly into a big budget action, adventure spectacle, and the action adventure spectacle fucking sucks,

Laci (00:11:37):

Sucks.

Matt (00:11:38):

It looks like shit. It’s not interesting.

Laci (00:11:41):

Literally beside the point, everything important happens when that’s not happening. And maybe because Bethany’s character has a map, so we’re going to, okay, well now we’re going to the next boring part. That’s how I took her map. Like, okay, we’re doing the interesting stuff. Bethany, take me to the boring part now

Matt (00:12:00):

And you should get you a movie that does both. The Masterpiece Classic version of this movie is a movie that can handle both that actually gives you legitimate thrills. It should be something like, I mean it should be like an Indiana Jones, but Funer and Jake Kazen who directed this movie, his dad wrote Indiana or wrote Raiders of the Lost Ark, didn’t direct it and he’s clearly not a Steven Spielberg, but it is just, I can see the cynical calculation of the studio

Speaker 5 (00:12:28):

Hiring

Matt (00:12:28):

This guy and we’ll detail his career in a second. He just directed, he directed Cameron Diaz comedies. He’d never made a big budget action spectacle.

Laci (00:12:37):

So even though you’ve got legit action stars like the Rock, and I’d say also the woman that plays, yeah,

Matt (00:12:44):

Karen Gillen, Karen,

Laci (00:12:45):

Right? They’re used to being directed in action and their action parts physically they’re great. They can’t do the work of a director not piecing it all together in a way where this interesting stuff we’re saying the way our characters are, there’s a way to weave that through. I shouldn’t be waiting for the action. It should just happen and I shouldn’t be waiting for it to stop either.

Matt (00:13:10):

It’s like, I can see this as a Hollywood has reached a point with the blockbusters where they’re like, nobody actually cares about the action, but action signifies big action sequences with special effects signify big important movie you have to see on the big screen. So if it’s bad, it doesn’t matter. And this is a point where, and the Marvel movie model is you hire a comedy or a TV director,

Laci (00:13:34):

Their

Matt (00:13:35):

Only actual job is work with the actors, create a sense of levity on set work with their chemistry, all the effects, all the action sequences. We’re going to outsource those to VFX artists who make $9 an hour and they’re going to look like shit. Jesus

Laci (00:13:49):

Christ.

Matt (00:13:49):

Nobody’s going to be talking to each other. It’s all going to be bland.

Laci (00:13:52):

It’s like we want the quotable moments to be the ones we spend all the money on, the things people are going to be saying to each other later that make them think that they really enjoyed that movie.

Matt (00:14:00):

And I did enjoy. I think that’s why I was thinking, I don’t know what version of this you could do where it was a body swap comedy. Maybe it would just have to be a Freaky Friday situation

Speaker 1 (00:14:09):

Where

Matt (00:14:10):

You could take these four actors who I think are great and very funny together and put them, can they go to high school? I don’t know, but I would so much rather see that movie,

Laci (00:14:19):

Right? Yeah. All character development study and people stuff and not this shoehorned in action just for action’s sake.

Matt (00:14:30):

Yeah. So let’s go over the history of the Jumanji franchise, this sort of inadvertent franchise, kind of a,

Laci (00:14:36):

Oh, that looks Christian. Is this a vegetable

Matt (00:14:42):

Laci’s looking at a thumbnail from the Jumanji animated series, which I only just learned is a thing and so is my vow to you. Now I’ll be making a video where I watch the pilot episode of the show and try

Laci (00:14:53):

To unpack it. That’s a very matte video right there. Unknown animated moments. That’s you baby.

Matt (00:14:59):

Alright. And you can check this out on our YouTube add load-bearing beams, pod TikTok, load bearing beams, or those are the two places you can find it. All right, let’s get into the history of Jumanji, which all begins in 1981 with the Illustrated children’s book, Jumanji by Chris Van Alberg, he of the Polar Express fame. I have read this book, I don’t remember it well. I don’t think it has much in common with the Robin Williams movie. Basically just takes its idea. It’s like it’s a game, but stuff will come out.

Laci (00:15:53):

That stuff comes out of the things that are real.

Matt (00:15:55):

Yeah,

Laci (00:15:55):

It’s Night in museum, which I’ve never seen,

Matt (00:15:58):

Also never seen that.

Laci (00:15:59):

It feels the same to me.

Matt (00:16:00):

So the Robin Williams movie directed by Joe Johnston came out December, 1995, made it was the 10th highest grossing movie of 1995. We reviewed this movie on the podcast years ago. It was more overtly a kid’s movie, very different in tone as Laci. And I said it was very like, we looked at it on it as a very sad movie, almost a cursed object like Don’t watch Jumanji. That’ll make you too sad.

Laci (00:16:22):

In fact, point to the person who tells you that this is their favorite childhood movie and I don’t want to hang out with them. What the fuck is that person?

Matt (00:16:29):

But I know those

Laci (00:16:30):

People are out there. Of course they are, but they must be deeply, they’re going through something, they’re processing something.

Matt (00:16:38):

All the quotes I have from the people involved in making this movie from before the movie came out we’re like, well, obviously the 1995 movie is a classic. It’s untouchable. How do you even attempt to make a sequel or enter that world, that classic world? I kept thinking what? Really?

Laci (00:16:53):

It’s just Robin Williams pedestal stuff.

Matt (00:16:56):

I guess so. I guess so. I’m getting some of my history from Anthony Alessandro’s article from 2017 in deadline about how this sequel finally came out. It took forever to get a sequel, but Sony had always wanted a sequel to this very big movie, but it took a while. And so in the nineties there was an animated series ran for three seasons on UPN Damn

Speaker 2 (00:17:16):

40

Matt (00:17:16):

Total episodes though.

Speaker 2 (00:17:18):

Wow.

Matt (00:17:19):

With kids tv, you either got the standard 52 or 65 episode order. If you get less than that, it means you’re not

Laci (00:17:24):

The hit they want. Okay. It sounds like a lot, but it looks like shit.

Matt (00:17:28):

Well, character Designs by Everett Pack, the legend Duck Man’s Own.

Laci (00:17:33):

Okay.

Matt (00:17:33):

Voices by Tim Curry. William Sanderson, EB Farham himself Charles Napier, how about that?

Laci (00:17:41):

Okay,

Matt (00:17:42):

Keep

Laci (00:17:43):

Going.

Matt (00:17:43):

I can’t wait to, I’m going to check this out. Great, and I’ll let you know what’s going on with it. Okay. But Chris Van Alberg wrote a children’s book that was an official sequel called Hor in 2002, in which some kids get sick of playing Jumanji and they play hor instead and it sends their house into outer space.

Laci (00:17:59):

I remember you reviewing this on our Jumanji episode. I was like, why does this terrible looking stuff look familiar? And now I know why,

Matt (00:18:07):

But we watched it with our kid at the time and we liked it. It was a fun little kid’s movie directed by John Favreau whose follow up to Elf Big follow up to Elf Laci. Laci is unmoved by any of this information.

Laci (00:18:20):

I believe you. If I liked it, I liked it.

Matt (00:18:22):

Sony apparently marketed this movie as a sequel to Jumanji, but there’s no mention of Jumanji in the movie at all. They were just like, that’s fucking weird. It’s Jumanji too hor. But there’s nothing about Jumanji in the movie and it flopped has a very young Josh Hutchson and a pre twilight Kristen Stewart. So it’s an okay movie. It flopped. It did not do well. Alright, as all of this is happening, you have the starts and stops of the Jumanji sequel and a script gets written and developed in the late nineties, which involves the president of the United States getting sucked into the Jumanji board game, and then his evil vice president takes over for him while he has to battle animals in the video, in the game, the board game world. Okay.

(00:19:08):

This never went into production, and so they just brought in all the classic rewrite guys, including Chris Van Osberg himself. Sony really wanted to bring Robin Williams back, but they were unable to get him, so they decided to make Ttra instead. Robin Williams died in August of 2014, and then one year later, August of 2015, Sony officially announces a sequel and then gets a ton of backlash. The actor Bradley Pierce, who played the main kid from the first movie said it was like an insult to Robin Williams’ memory. There was a lot of this and I kind of remember it.

Laci (00:19:40):

That’s so sad. I mean, he’s got a lot of movies, a ton of movies that are untouchable classics. So think you can let go of one without being a slap in the face.

Matt (00:19:51):

This new movie was such a hit right away that it is just vacuumed up any of this. And in fact, when people talk about the Jumanji movies, they usually say the first one or the second one, and they mean this one and the sequel.

Laci (00:20:05):

Oh, this one as a sequel,

Matt (00:20:07):

Which you have seen. Yes. With Danny DeVito and Danny Glover. One of them plays like a horse.

Laci (00:20:12):

What you’re talking about

Matt (00:20:13):

Now. We watched it. We saw, okay. Yeah. This started with an idea by Chris McKenna. He is from the extended Dan Harmon community universe that runs Hollywood now. All the community actors, all the Rick and Morty writers, they all get to write all the big movies. So this guy wrote for community, wrote for American dad, wrote the Lego Batman movie. He writes all of the Tom Holland Spider-Man movies. He said, here’s my idea of video game, not board game. And they’re like, we love it. So that was the big innovation. The Rock gets announced to lead the cast in April of 2016 and he, with his very prolific Instagram, he probably pays 45 people to be just his Instagram team is big about saying this is a sequel, not a reboot. We’re not rebooting it. Production began in Hawaii in the summer of 2016 on Jumanji. Welcome to the Jungle. To direct they get Jake Kaden. Jake Kaden directed Orange County. Did you ever see that movie?

Laci (00:21:15):

God, that looks familiar, but I can’t. It was Jack Black.

Matt (00:21:18):

Jack Black and Colin Hanks and it was like he has to get into it. I watched this movie a lot when I was a kid.

Laci (00:21:24):

Yeah. It’s something about think I’ve seen

Matt (00:21:26):

It got to do some fraud to get into college or

Laci (00:21:28):

Maybe, yeah. Yeah, I’ve seen it.

Matt (00:21:29):

I was thinking we might cover it one day just because it was sort of a movie of mine

Laci (00:21:32):

Back

Matt (00:21:32):

Then. But obviously both of these actors are also in

Speaker 5 (00:21:35):

Jumanji.

Matt (00:21:36):

Welcome to the Jungle, but his best No movie is Walk Hard, the Dewey Cox story. He directed the Cameron Diaz movies Bad Teacher and sex tape and then got the Jumanji movie. He said quote at the time in 2017, Jumanji is the kind of movie that I think people shouldn’t out and out remake. To me, a big part of its power is in the unique elements of its execution. Within that, I think there’s this central idea in mythology that’s mysterious but powerful and commands a powerful part of the imagination. The director said quote, wow, what? Absolute drivel. Okay.

Laci (00:22:08):

Ideas at all mean. All he’s saying is it does not make sense that people are getting sucked into a video game. We’re not going to bother explaining it at all. This is a way more try hard thing than the video board game comes to life. Accept it.

Matt (00:22:21):

We are talking about the power of imagination and the imaginative power of

Laci (00:22:24):

Creativity it up. I mean, you do have to skip over that part. You do have to just let your brain go, oh, fuck it, they’re in the game, whatever.

Matt (00:22:31):

Oh sure.

Laci (00:22:31):

It’s very stupid.

Matt (00:22:32):

And I like how fast they get to it.

Laci (00:22:34):

Yes. I like how they get slapped right back out of there too. And then it’s like

Matt (00:22:38):

Modern

Laci (00:22:39):

Day.

Matt (00:22:39):

Yeah. The running time is very generous with this movie. The sequence that opens. I feel like for some reason if this movie came out in 2025, you’d spend 25 minutes with the first kid. His dad finds it on the beach. There’d be 10 minutes of him running on the beach,

Laci (00:22:54):

The literal first kid.

Matt (00:22:57):

And then he plays and he’s like, I like Black Sabbath instead of this. And then 30 more minutes of that. And then he’s like, maybe I’ll shoot this video game out. I dunno. They go so fast. The movie Trucks along. So Jake Kaden. Yeah, his dad is Lauren’s Kaden writer screenwriter of Raise of the Lost Dark and Empire Strikes Back. Everybody’s dad is fucking somebody. But it’s the thing again,

Laci (00:23:18):

Probably that guy’s mom

Matt (00:23:19):

Again, Hollywood’s Mo, which the fantastic four movie that just came out is the same thing. You get a TV director or a comedy director and tell them your job is not to do the action. Your job is not to make this movie look like anything. Your job is just make the actors seem like they like each other. And that’s what he does. And he does it very, very good. And there’s a lighthearted comedic atmosphere here, really easygoing. The cast has great chemistry. It just doesn’t mesh well at all with the adventure spectacle that this should be.

Laci (00:23:51):

Well, and the villain is so flat in this. I’m not scared of him at all. He seems like he’s from a completely different movie. There’s hardly any interaction between him and our heroes. The bad guys have a face and there’s two main bad guys, but you don’t ever see them doing any of the action. There’s no connection. It feels like you’re watching a video game in the worst way Faces now. No face, motorcycle guy, bad guy, but video. He’s gone now.

Matt (00:24:24):

Video games have great

Laci (00:24:25):

Villain. Yes, but not this. Yes, but this age of video game, it was more disjointed because cut scenes are when you’re not going to see any up close anything of a bad guy. They’re just pixels on the screen and you’re fighting them. It feels choppy like that. I mean, yeah, look at the last of us. Obviously there’s an amazing plot in video games now. I just mean if we’re talking about nineties video game,

Matt (00:24:51):

There are lots of great villains that I remember.

Laci (00:24:54):

Okay, Jack Black. Hello Bowser. I got you. I know that. But you have to make it that, and the story has to be written that way. I’m just saying this might just be a bad game because it feels like it’s telling me the story of a bad game.

Matt (00:25:07):

Okay. Yes, I agree.

Laci (00:25:09):

Overly simple, not enough. This wouldn’t be a game. It certainly wouldn’t have its own fricking controllers attached to the console as though there’s endless playtime like fricking pong, which there was. You just keep playing pong. This one you solve five riddles or whatever, and then you’re done. You would throw the whole console away. It’s stupid.

Matt (00:25:30):

Well, it is a board game that turned itself into a video game.

Laci (00:25:33):

So maybe

Matt (00:25:33):

That’s, that’s why because it sat on top of another, a PlayStation console and was like, so

Laci (00:25:40):

I didn’t even notice that.

Matt (00:25:41):

I got an idea. That’s how it happens.

Laci (00:25:44):

I thought it was taken from the fucking beach and then embarrassed to find itself in a cool guy’s broom and went Just kidding on video game.

Matt (00:25:52):

I mean, yeah,

Laci (00:25:53):

Both

Matt (00:25:54):

Of those things,

Laci (00:25:54):

It’s all dumb. How did it end up in the fucking basement of the high school? That’s where, I mean it zips by those parts because it’s like we just want to get to the jungle. Right, right,

Matt (00:26:11):

Right. Exactly.

Laci (00:26:13):

Oh, this is a Sony movie, Matt. I had no idea except for every time a Sony product was on the screen. You’re like Sony phone,

Matt (00:26:19):

Sony. I guess because most of the movie’s going to take place in a world without gadgets. They have to really, really front load it with Sony products at the beginning of the movie. Everybody’s using a Sony phone. Love those Sony phones, but it’s even in every poster in their rooms is for a Sony product. There’s even a poster of Pink Floyd’s album, the Division Bell from 1994, which was released by Sony Music Group. So it’s like if something’s on screen it has to be Sony.

Laci (00:26:46):

Yeah, I don’t think this is, we need a Sony thing in every spot here. I think this is a, we cannot have a Google or Apple thing ever, so we will fill those moments with a Sony

Matt (00:26:57):

Thing. No, he uses an Apple computer. He uses a Mac, that’s right. But Sony doesn’t have computers.

Laci (00:27:03):

Oh, well then there. That’s all. Okay.

Matt (00:27:05):

Does it? Because I thought, wait a minute, it’s an Apple computer, but wait. Yeah, I guess Sony doesn’t, it’s

Laci (00:27:09):

Just a

Matt (00:27:09):

Competitor. They make monitors, but they don’t make computers. Anyway, this movie was an enormous hit, almost a billion dollars at the time. It was the biggest movie the studio had ever had. It was bigger than Spider-Man.

Speaker 1 (00:27:20):

Whoa.

Matt (00:27:21):

And the studio was desperate for a franchise because franchises are everything today, but back then it was even more the case. If you don’t have a franchise, you’re nothing. And Sony has been

Laci (00:27:34):

New sound unlocked. That’s a different piece of equipment.

Matt (00:27:39):

Sony has been in desperate search of their own franchise. They have Cocus of the James Bond franchise and Cocus of Spider-Man. But this is their own total thing. And then they come out with a sequel two years later and it also does great. But why no sequel after that?

Laci (00:27:54):

Okay, that was my question. Do you have a franchise if you’ve only made two movies, is that really

Matt (00:28:00):

What anyone’s, well you also have the one from the nineties and you also have hor

Laci (00:28:03):

Well, that wasn’t theirs.

Matt (00:28:04):

Yeah.

Laci (00:28:05):

You said Spider-Man’s just as much theirs than if they’re going to count the ones before.

Matt (00:28:11):

I meant the studio, but no

Laci (00:28:13):

Owned. Owned it’s property. Completely. I got you.

Matt (00:28:17):

So what a question. If there’s only two movies, is it a franchise?

Laci (00:28:22):

Listeners we’re asking you, we found our bonus question. Maybe

Matt (00:28:26):

I think franchise. Okay.

Laci (00:28:29):

Maybe it had the hopes for more and that’s how you call it franchise.

Matt (00:28:33):

Well, certainly. But I think the reason you say franchise and not series is because franchise implies ancillary like tie-in products and video games and tv streaming series and all kinds of other shit. And yeah, this movie, I’m sure this movie moved tons of merch.

Laci (00:28:47):

Alright, well then the Mario movies are a franchise as well because they’re all merch. They’re all Legos.

Matt (00:28:52):

They’re

Laci (00:28:53):

Barely a movie. There’s so much Lego.

Matt (00:28:55):

So

Laci (00:28:56):

Dude, I think Captain Seaplane is here with his double decker, what do you call it? What do you call an airplane with his two engine? What do you call an airplane?

Matt (00:29:07):

What his bi, what do you call an

Laci (00:29:09):

Airplane plane?

Matt (00:29:09):

A biplane.

Laci (00:29:10):

There’s something with two. It’s doubledecker is dual engine. It’s a byplay.

Matt (00:29:13):

I don’t know what you’re saying. It’s a byplay. Yeah, I said

Laci (00:29:15):

Byplay. I just meant there was a two in there

Matt (00:29:17):

Double.

Laci (00:29:17):

Good

Matt (00:29:18):

Job.

Laci (00:29:18):

Bye. You don’t understand me.

Matt (00:29:21):

The sequel two years later also makes a lot of money. You would think, okay, we’re going to get a Jumanji movie every two years. Why did they stop? Why COVID obviously happened, but I can’t find a good answer for why this hasn’t happened. I mean, the Rock certainly needs a hit, but they announced a Jumanji three in October of last year with the full cast and crew returning.

Laci (00:29:44):

Wouldn’t though the actress involved in the Guardian movies have been really busy right through the stretch. I feel like they were making one every two years. It seemed like

Matt (00:29:53):

There was only one other Guardian’s movie. She only appeared in one other Marvel movie after Jumanji two.

Laci (00:30:00):

There aren’t three Guardians of Galaxy.

Matt (00:30:01):

There are, but 20 14, 20 17 and then 2023. And then she’s in Avengers

Laci (00:30:07):

In

Matt (00:30:08):

Finney War and Endgame. But those are pre,

Laci (00:30:10):

I don’t know why. I just felt like they were guardian it up over and over. These

Matt (00:30:15):

Are all actors in High Demand. Certainly.

Laci (00:30:17):

Yeah.

Matt (00:30:19):

And Jake Haston directed the Rocks movie Red one, his Christmas Santa Badass movie. Giant

Speaker 1 (00:30:25):

Flop.

Matt (00:30:26):

Everyone hated. And it’s unclear, is this in actual production? They put out a poster at CinemaCon this year. That was just the logo saying, Jumanji Christmas 2026, your title.

Laci (00:30:39):

I mean, they’re all still around. Why not?

Matt (00:30:41):

They’re all attached, but is this actually going to happen?

Laci (00:30:45):

Can you please show me a poster for this judge? Mue too. You’re pretending exists. Someone’s a horse. Wait, so the rock’s in it. Okay. All four of them are in it. I thought it was just the horse you’re talking about. It was just a horse and some guy.

Matt (00:30:59):

No, all of them come back plus two, they’re like two of their grandfathers who have an old feud and then they don’t all get put back in their,

Laci (00:31:12):

They get shuffled

Matt (00:31:13):

Spencer. Yeah, they get shuffled, but then eventually get back to the ones to the configuration. We know. And so Kevin Hart is doing a Danny DeVito impression or something.

Laci (00:31:23):

Oh, okay.

Matt (00:31:24):

It’s not as good as the

Laci (00:31:26):

Okay. But we liked it. Oh, you know why there’s snow. It can go fuck itself. You know how I don’t like that sand and snow truly get fucked.

Matt (00:31:37):

I guess how I want you to take us out of this history segment is when every single studio, which owns all this ip, and they’re like, we have got to find a way to use our, I know what you did last summer, a brand asset to get some new money. Jumanji is what is the height of what you’re hoping to happen? Like that nineties movie, that was really sad. You’re going to bring a movie back 25 years later and it’s going to make a billion dollars and be beloved and everyone’s going to love it and it’s going to make so much money. That’s they’re, when there’s the LeBron James Space Jam movie happens. People are nostalgic for the nineties. That’s what this movie might be. Why? It’s like, well, it worked for Jumanji,

Laci (00:32:23):

It

Matt (00:32:23):

Might work for

Laci (00:32:24):

Us. It became a template. Okay, so we should blame it

Matt (00:32:30):

For

Laci (00:32:30):

Some things. Should blame, curse it. Okay.

Matt (00:32:32):

Alright. Jumanji. So this film gets right going opening on a beach in 1996. Thumping exotic drums playing fun. What is happening on this beach? Well, it’s just a normal beach, but there’s a board game in the sand and his dad is running by and he’s like, sir,

Laci (00:33:26):

Here’s a 40 pound board game. I’m going to take this from the rest of my jog. But they do make it look like he’s so excited about it that he just turns around and goes, fuck my morning routine. My teenage son’s going to love this.

Matt (00:33:37):

Yeah. My sleeping teenage son who was like, Hey kiddo, wake up. I got great news. Maybe we can play this

Laci (00:33:43):

Later

Matt (00:33:44):

And later. This kid reveals my dad is just like me, a metalhead, a metalhead who loves board games. He finds on the beach while running. Now

Laci (00:33:51):

In 1996, would there not be CDs? What’s all the cassettes in this bedroom?

Matt (00:33:56):

He’s just so retro.

Laci (00:33:58):

Is he? Would it be retro yet?

Matt (00:34:00):

Oh sure.

Laci (00:34:00):

Oh,

Matt (00:34:01):

Well, no.

Laci (00:34:01):

No. Okay.

Matt (00:34:03):

It would be, I really invested. It’s like me with

Laci (00:34:06):

Cd, this collection. Yeah, that’s exactly what I was thinking. Well, we’ll do both. And

Matt (00:34:10):

He’s like, who plays board games? Only stupid lamos video games for me. And he starts playing some video game and then he’s asleep later that night and the Jumanji board game comes to life and absorbs the PlayStation or whatever. And then he’s wakes up and he’s like, what’s the board game? What? Huh? And he opens it up and inside is a little cartridge, a game cartridge. And so he sticks it in his video game console and then we just pull outside of his house, it glows green and boom. Jumanji, welcome to the jungle.

Laci (00:34:44):

Oh no. I

Matt (00:34:44):

Think it’s pretty effective. Little like 82nd opening.

Laci (00:34:48):

Great

Matt (00:34:48):

Prologue to the movie.

Laci (00:34:51):

Yeah.

Matt (00:34:52):

Yeah,

Laci (00:34:52):

I agree.

Matt (00:34:53):

Good. So we’re in the present. Alex Wolf, our hereditary friend is playing Spencer. He loves playing video games and all movie video game players. He’s like jumping up or cutting fuck.

Laci (00:35:07):

Well, and saying it out loud, and I guess it’s okay, is that because later on the movie wants him to do that, helping coaching himself through the moves using his big body. He’s not used to. He’s like, wait, I know what to do. I have practice this uppercut body slim.

Matt (00:35:20):

That is exactly

Laci (00:35:21):

Right. Wall.

Matt (00:35:21):

Yes.

Laci (00:35:22):

I mean fine, I guess. I think

Matt (00:35:24):

We did a thing. We did, I think a bonus video that was like, what are things people do in movies that are way more exaggerated than they do in real life? We didn’t mention video games, but everybody I

Laci (00:35:32):

Thought you did.

Matt (00:35:33):

I didn’t mention it in the video game itself. I said it in a comment

Laci (00:35:37):

That

Matt (00:35:37):

I’d seen lots of people point out how, especially when you video game all the time, it is just second nature. You’re barely moving your body. You’re just kind of moving your thumbs

Laci (00:35:47):

Barely

Matt (00:35:47):

At all.

Laci (00:35:48):

It looks more like masturbating

Matt (00:35:50):

Than pretending

Laci (00:35:51):

To drive a ship.

Matt (00:35:53):

So passionless and clinical, if you have ever watched someone masturbate, which I do at least once a day, watch someone masturbate every day, is what

Laci (00:36:00):

I’m saying. No, they understand. You totally read as cuck.

Matt (00:36:03):

No. Yeah, yeah. For clinical reasons. There’s just a lot you can get out of the world. But sub, he gets a text message on his Sony smartphone from fridge.

Laci (00:36:12):

Are you going to have a hard time with the Sony stuff, the rest of the movie Talk?

Matt (00:36:17):

What hard time am I having?

Laci (00:36:18):

You just really seem to be having a hard time.

Matt (00:36:20):

I’m just pointing it out. It’s just a detail. That’s what our podcast is, we say, and then this happens, and then this happens. And there’s a Sony phone.

Laci (00:36:26):

I guess I’m just a little sensitive to it. Since the entire movie, you couldn’t let a Sony thing go by without going Sony.

Matt (00:36:32):

What’s the problem with this

Laci (00:36:33):

Play? Sean, you kept doing that play, Sean.

Matt (00:36:35):

Well, you start then you have observations then.

Laci (00:36:39):

No, because once again, you act like it’s the same thing for you to go through this. Take notes. You see the bullet points on your end. I see nothing but images. And you’re like, if it’s so easy, you do it. And it’s like you’ve given me half the tools and no preparation time. Okay, watch me fall on my face.

Matt (00:36:55):

You,

Laci (00:36:55):

I could do it too. If I were the one taking all the notes. Take the notes. It’s your job.

Matt (00:37:01):

You could take notes, you could have observations.

Laci (00:37:04):

No way you

Matt (00:37:05):

Could have thoughts.

Laci (00:37:07):

Oh, that’s what’s missing from this podcast is me sharing my thoughts.

Matt (00:37:10):

Yeah, I mean your thought out thoughts, not just your

Laci (00:37:13):

Off the cuff.

Matt (00:37:14):

Reptilian reactions to things.

Laci (00:37:16):

My cuff stuff,

Matt (00:37:18):

Your theories, your reads, your analyses.

Laci (00:37:20):

That all comes natural.

Matt (00:37:22):

Yeah, I know that’s what you say, but this is like me when I was in schools. No, I do better when I don’t study. I actually do better when I save it till the last minute.

Laci (00:37:30):

Okay. But everybody knows that’s not true. All right, fine. Sorry Matt, I’m so glad you’re bringing this up now. 10 years into the podcast, I will change the way I do things.

Matt (00:37:38):

Alright, great. So fridge.

Laci (00:37:40):

The reason why I stopped taking notes is because I always took notes. I didn’t watch a movie without a notepad in a pin. And time and time again, either I would talk about my notes and be bored to death by them. They’d distract me. I’m like, I need to get ’em in there. Or I just kind of started not using them at all. And it was a natural transition. It wasn’t just like, fuck this podcast. Where is our divorce attorney?

Matt (00:38:07):

Anita?

Laci (00:38:07):

Anita. Anita. Divorce.

Matt (00:38:10):

Like poison. It sounds hearing you shout for Anita. I don’t like it. I don’t like it. He gets a text,

Laci (00:38:16):

Just watch me masturbate

Matt (00:38:17):

From, he gets a text message from Fridge. Fridge is like, Hey, you got my essay bro.

Laci (00:38:24):

Essay.

Matt (00:38:25):

And he’s like, shit, I was supposed to write his essay on westward expansion and American exceptionalism.

Laci (00:38:30):

But I’m so smart nerd that I’m just, yeah, I’m done fridge.

Matt (00:38:36):

This actually was a thing I did in high school.

Laci (00:38:39):

But not because you wanted friends, right? Because you wanted money.

Matt (00:38:41):

Well, and for my actual friends, they would just pay me to write and I would just type out some plum. And then it was good that we went to the west because the Western Western is that way. And it was a good thing that we went west.

Laci (00:38:53):

So they paid you to be bad at this?

Matt (00:38:55):

I wasn’t. I mean, I did the job.

Laci (00:38:57):

Your bad was there. Excellent.

Matt (00:39:00):

I always knew what teachers wanted to hear.

Laci (00:39:02):

Oh man, you’re fucking, you know what I mean? You’re Michael Bay. You just know

Matt (00:39:09):

You

Laci (00:39:09):

Could just phone it in. It’s always the right call.

Matt (00:39:12):

Meaning if you haven’t tuned into our pain and gain episodes, which the episode, which the numbers tell me you, no one cares about that movie.

Laci (00:39:18):

That’s exactly right. Don’t tell them they have to go learn it for their own amazing stuff in that episode. You’re missing out. Alright,

Matt (00:39:25):

Fine. So finishes up his essay and then his mom comes in and she’s like, little baby bitch, don’t forget your EpiPen. You’re allergic to everything. Don’t remember the world’s a scary place. Okay, be scared.

Laci (00:39:38):

It’s interesting, right? Because the movie is on wheels. I appreciate they’re not lingering too much on this, but her words are echoing my ear the rest of the time. I know they want to quickly set him up for Woody Allen level. Fucking

Matt (00:39:53):

Hypochondria

Laci (00:39:54):

Hypochondria. But he’s just an abused kid. He’s like the kid from it. That’s like the mom does his rectal temperature every morning whether he’s sick or not.

Speaker 5 (00:40:04):

It’s

Laci (00:40:04):

Like, okay, no, let’s deal with your issues because oh, but the issues are your mom, you still live there. Alright, Jumanji.

Matt (00:40:12):

So it’s like there’s two sort of things going on right away. We have this idea of westward expansion, expansion, the frontier. We’re going to conquer territory, we’re going to tame the savages with our colonization. And then we have these kids, they’re on the video games all day. They’re not going outside in nature. And so they’re just getting allergic to everything and they need to carry around these EpiPens. Come on. The best thing that could ever happen is if it’s video game transports him into the real world, which is not real at all where he has to encounter some real danger,

Laci (00:40:43):

Right? With superpowers.

Matt (00:40:47):

So let’s see.

Laci (00:40:48):

Okay, here’s Bethany. I like how quickly they’re going through this to show up. This is what this character’s like. And now this one is this one. And it’s good the work they do with Fridge because he comes off like a complete asshole if you don’t at first he his mom and that there is some pressure on him. He’s a sports guy. He was on the same level as, sorry, what is his name? The nurse

Matt (00:41:11):

Spencer

Laci (00:41:12):

As Spencer. They were friends, but he had a growth spurt. He is good at sports. Spencer never turned out to be that way. And so he got a boost in the social department and he’s got pressure from his mom to make sure he stays on the team. And anyway, I appreciate that they give you that. So he’s not just this dick who thinks he’s entitled to free labor because he’s cool. It’s not exactly what it is.

Matt (00:41:37):

There’s the lightest touch about, I mean, I’m acting the way I’m acting because I look the way I look and people treat me a certain way. And so I just kind of have in this Breakfast Club way, I just have to sort of play that role. Bethany’s like, well, I’m a hot girl, so people expect me to act, do hot girl things like take the most carefully framed and composed selfie when I wake up.

Laci (00:41:58):

Right? Well, and it does seem super empty. And this is her morning every single morning. And you kind of ignore the whole time that she just went through a breakup because she seems like someone that’s not a serious character. So you’re not really taking that in. But it’s like, okay, you learn later though Bethy is deeper than that and not as superficial as that. And maybe this was just a specific kind of mourning, but you don’t know that right away doing broad strokes here, which is like, so she’s like this all the time. And then of course the really ridiculous scene of her taking a phone call in class. That’s crazy. There’s a bit over the top movie who sucks people into video games.

Matt (00:42:39):

So Spencer and Fridge meet up in front of the freak house. Why Meet me in front of the Freak House?

Laci (00:42:44):

We’ve lived here our whole lives. No other landmarks exist. That’s

Matt (00:42:47):

Not a mean thing. We call it the name of the owner is Freak. Mr. And Mrs. Freak.

Laci (00:42:50):

Well, no, their last name’s Re

Matt (00:42:52):

And their Kate is the one who disappeared in the first scene,

Laci (00:42:54):

Disappeared to a first Frank. So F

Matt (00:42:56):

Freak, f freak freak. And the fridge is, thanks for my essay. And Spencer’s like, maybe we could be friends and hang out again. And he’s like, yeah, I’ll get back to you. And then the dad of the freak house comes out and he’s like, Hey, what are you doing here? You need to be careful where you loiter. I’m like, oh, I’m sorry. I’m real sorry Mr. Honest. My son died of loitering. So it’s at school. Bethany makes her video call during the quiz. And her teacher’s like Bethany, you’re aware there are other people in the world, they actually show Bethany’s actually smart. She finished her quiz very fast. She’s like, well, I’m done with my quiz, so now I can make a video call. But Bethany, other people are taking their quiz and other people exist. Well, I do like that. She’s like to her teacher, she’s like, listen, I’m dealing with a crisis right now and I feel like you need to support me as a woman.

Laci (00:43:46):

And she does give her a moment of a break. The teacher is about to be like, alright, all right, fine, fine, fine. And then she pushes it one more. And then that’s detention.

Matt (00:43:54):

Detention. Oh

Laci (00:43:55):

My God. Not detention. They’re going to detain them. They

Matt (00:43:58):

In gym class, we meet Spencer and he has a crush on Martha.

Laci (00:44:02):

We don’t meet Spencer.

Matt (00:44:03):

Oh wait, we meet Martha. Martha. Because for 500 years every woman in America was named Martha. But I was looking at baby names from the late nineties and early two thousands. And Martha was nowhere in the top. Like 500.

Laci (00:44:16):

Yes. This would be a standout old lady name

Matt (00:44:18):

At

Laci (00:44:18):

The time.

Matt (00:44:19):

Hey Martha. But you know what, Bethany also

Laci (00:44:21):

Wasn’t. Bethany also was my cousin. Bethany is one of the only ones I know. So it’s a very common name for me, but I never see it in the wild.

Matt (00:44:29):

Yeah, it’s an older name. It is. It’s older than you. It sounds like a name that

Laci (00:44:32):

It’s from the Bible,

Matt (00:44:33):

Like a Brooklyn or something. But no, no,

Laci (00:44:35):

No. I mean I figured it was biblical because of where it came from. My family,

Matt (00:44:40):

We meet Martha and she’s not given much characterization in this movie. Really? She’s like, I think gym class is pointless. It’s not going to help me get into Princeton. And her gym teacher’s like, okay, Martha, come on. We know you’re laser focused on Princeton. And she’s like, I just think sports are dumb because you throw a touchdown and you get five points come on. And the gym teacher’s like, okay, there’s a lot wrong with that. But first of all, anyway, I think we can add there’s a lot wrong with that or variations thereof to our list of these movie things that are getting fucked out just so that happened. Or

Laci (00:45:14):

This one still has a few more miles for me. But now that you’ve put it in my attention zone, thank you. It’ll be fucked out before I know it.

Matt (00:45:25):

But she’s supposed to be the most sympathetic of all. But I mean

Laci (00:45:29):

She’s,

Matt (00:45:30):

She’s

Laci (00:45:30):

Find her kind of an asshole

Matt (00:45:32):

Because

Laci (00:45:32):

There’s plenty of people who get lots out of sports and for a lot of people who aren’t brainiacs, that’s right. I use that word. That is what they have. That is their upward mobility opportunity. Or just people like to be fucking in the middle. It doesn’t make ’em stupid to kind of like sports

Matt (00:45:48):

And she’s doing the same thing but evil. Or I’m laser focused on going to Princeton so I can get a job as a girl boss and destroy all of your lives.

Laci (00:45:57):

And also you can get a fucking scholarship to Princeton that is athletic as well. Exactly. This isn’t the only track to it. And if you’re so smart, then you understand that there’s requirements. Did you really want to learn another language? Did you really want to go to driver’s ed when your mom could teach you Perfectly fine. No, but we’re checking the boxes, right? Bethany? They go, no, no, Martha old lady names pick up a ball is what we’re saying. Right? Be well-rounded like a ball.

Matt (00:46:24):

They get detention. Well, because Spencer gets caught with the plagiarism and they call Spencer and Fridge into the principal’s office and they’re like, it’s very clear you wrote his essay for him and they just both get detention. Well, fridge gets kicked off the team off of the football team,

Laci (00:46:42):

Which fucking sucks.

Matt (00:46:43):

It does suck. But they both be expelled.

Laci (00:46:46):

It seems like it. Yeah.

Matt (00:46:47):

High school is all about, we take plagiarism so seriously, zero tolerance.

Laci (00:46:51):

Well, maybe because Wikipedia wouldn’t such a scourge yet. They don’t have to have a zero policy. I think that came with the internet and the mass use of it. And now with ai, I don’t know what the fuck teachers do.

Matt (00:47:02):

I asked Patrick, what do you do? And he’s like, well, you can usually tell because you know the kid and you know what they’re capable of.

Laci (00:47:08):

There’s just a lot of M dashes in this paper for some fucking reason. Apparently. That’s a very prevalent thing for ai. I

Matt (00:47:14):

Heard that too. And I use in comparisons, I use tons of M dashes.

Laci (00:47:17):

I do too. I do too. And it’s totally right after you read enough of it, you’re like, baseball is to this, what soccer is to that. A lot of comparisons. And it might even just be two sentences and they’ll find a moment to do that kind of framing. It’s very ai.

Matt (00:47:36):

But he said that, and I’m sure that’s true, but I mean certainly teachers are very overworked and you have thousands of students, each of them and what they’re capable of.

Laci (00:47:45):

In fact, I’m impressed this teacher in this movie even noticed that plus could think back to a year ago and pull out this woman’s working overtime.

Matt (00:47:55):

So the principal sends them all to detention and he’s like, guys, you only have one life to live and you have to choose how you want to live it. It’s like it’s standard Hollywood screenwriting. Like, ooh, that’s going to tie into the thing that they’re going to do in the video game, but in a different way. But it’s like it’s effective for a reason. They are sentenced to go to the store room where they’re recycling millions of magazines, but they have to remove the staples from them.

Laci (00:48:22):

This doesn’t seem like that’s okay to do. You’re going to give them blisters. Are you allowed to get manual labor out of detention people? That seems like a weird incentive to give more detention.

Matt (00:48:32):

Well, I think the third thing that this movie’s commenting on is sort of the

Laci (00:48:36):

Prison industrial,

Matt (00:48:37):

Prison industrial complex. I’m like, you know what? I have the 13th Amendment for a reason, but instead only the two good boys and girls, the good boy and the good girl are working on it. And Fridge is looking at the trophies and is like, why do we have bowling balls in here? And Bethany’s just texting on her Insta Web and it’s like, are you going to help? And she’s like, no, I’m too pretty. But they find this old video game console and hook it up to one of those TVs on a cart.

Laci (00:49:06):

We’re better to put the TV on the cart than down three flights of stairs.

Matt (00:49:10):

Yeah, that’s a

Laci (00:49:11):

Good point. Easy to bring it back up later.

Matt (00:49:13):

So they’re like, Hey, let’s take a break and play this game. And they each select their character. But crucially, I say crucially a lot. It’s crucial. The Jefferson Seaplane McDonough, that character’s already been selected. Interesting. So they each have to choose a different character. Rudy Roundhouse, Franklin Moose. No, mouse. You

Laci (00:49:34):

Know what? I took that a different way. I knew that he couldn’t select one, but I thought it was forcing him to take mouse. I thought the point was that the game is going to choose who you need to be to help you figure out your shit. I thought that, but you’re right. He just takes the next thing and then each one that grabs the controller is just taking the very next. It’s not like they’re like, I don’t know which one sounds cool.

Matt (00:49:59):

I think you’re right on both accounts. I think the game is kind of like AWA from Avatar. It has a tree hive mind. It knows it’s all connected. We’re all one organism and it knows which one to select for you. It knows what you need to learn and you’re

Laci (00:50:14):

How I thought it meant.

Matt (00:50:16):

Yeah. And so blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Switch the game on. They get sucked into the game. We’re in a game starting with this, a video game. POV shot from the rock’s point of view, you just see his legs falling onto the ground and then a panning up hero shot of him doing the people’s eyebrow.

Laci (00:50:35):

Immediate, immediate people’s eyebrow. Immediate

Matt (00:50:37):

People’s eyebrow. And so they’re all figuring out their bodies and stuff. Who are they?

Laci (00:50:43):

Aren’t we all at that age? We’ve got the Laugh Shack in here now, and you could tell they had a good time making this movie. I don’t know how they got any usable. I would just be laughing the whole fucking time. I find Jack Black’s not always my cup of tea, but here he fucking is and I’ll drink the whole gallon. Thank you. Tea comes and Gallons The Rock is landing some decent jokes. So he’s not really, I don’t know. I find Kevin Hart very funny.

Matt (00:51:10):

Kevin Hart is Mouse and he’s a zoologist. The Rock is Dr. Smolder Brave Stone. I love that. Well, one, his name is Smolder Brave Stone. He’s also a doctor. And this was the thing in video games, maybe it still is, is like, well, there’s one character who’s obviously the one you’re supposed to choose. Obviously I’m supposed to be Lou Kang. I’m obviously the main character in the protagonist of the video game. He has no weaknesses. And in addition to everything else, he’s also a doctor. Well,

Laci (00:51:36):

And anytime there’s any kind of NPC that shows up, they only look at him, only talk to him. So it’s perfectly valid to pick any other character until you’re in the game. What if you were playing the game without him? Would any NPC even stop to talk to you like, oh nope. Not until Brave Stone gets here.

Matt (00:51:54):

What about Karen Gillen? Who is she?

Laci (00:51:57):

She is Ruby Roundhouse and she’s a smoke show and it works really well for this character because she’s so, it’s a nice balance to have someone so hot being so I don’t want to look this hot. I don’t know. It works for me here. Sometimes that can be

Matt (00:52:12):

Annoying. Her posture is bad. She’s got her arms crossed the whole time

Laci (00:52:16):

She puts a shirt around her. And I don’t want people to be ashamed of their bodies. It’s just like this character could be one note. It’s not because they’re layering a character on top of a stereotype, which is what all these guys are. It’s what you think is going to happen. But it really only happens with Ruby Roundhouse and with Brave Stone. It’s a layered thing where the others just like, here’s just two types of guys that are not really those guys in real life. It’s not the same thing. They aren’t stereotypes.

Matt (00:52:43):

And then Jack Black is the last to arrive playing. What’s the

Laci (00:52:49):

Shelly?

Matt (00:52:50):

She Shelly. Dr. Shelly Oberon. But Shelly must be short for Sheldon. You’re a man or an overweight, middle-aged man, Bethany. And they all have these three vertical lines tattooed on their arms,

Laci (00:53:05):

Sort of. They don’t know

Matt (00:53:06):

What they mean.

Laci (00:53:07):

The kind of computer. They go away a little bit. Right? But we’re going to find out, and I think one of them immediately dies from a hippo. Yeah.

Matt (00:53:13):

A hippo immediately comes out and eats Jack Black and then falls out of the sky and back onto the ground and says, I got eaten by the rhino and then I fell out of the sky.

Laci (00:53:25):

Am I still a fat white guy? Yes. I do lose track of the bars because there were several points where I thought they all just had one life and then they go killed someone. I’m like, well, okay. You guys are really confident about the bar count. I’m not

Matt (00:53:39):

Because it ends very with Ruby House sacrificing herself one more time. And I would’ve sworn she only had one left

Laci (00:53:47):

Too, too. Me too.

Matt (00:53:50):

But then there’s lots of rhinos chasing them or hippos chasing them, so they have to run away where they run into Mr. Nigel Billingsley, an NPC. He has a very good narrating voice. He only has a few bits of pre-programed dialogue and he explains and then transitions into a cut scene. And I’m sure people at the time in 2017 knew NPC and they knew cut scene and stuff, but the movie’s still explaining, well, this must be a cut scene. Now this is where the video game gives you exposition, so it explains the whole thing. Here is Jumanji is the land of Jumanji, and we got the very bad guy.

Laci (00:54:20):

He’s so bad. He’s got bugs on him.

Matt (00:54:23):

Russell Van Pelt played by Bobby Valle and a very boring performance.

Laci (00:54:28):

So boring. What a waste

Matt (00:54:31):

Of usually very exciting actor.

Laci (00:54:32):

He’s got nothing to play off of. He does not interact with the main characters at all. He just has his two goons and they’re boring as fuck. It’s two separate movies. It seems like it was shot entirely separate. There’s no chemistry between the two sets of groups.

Matt (00:54:46):

Right, and I’m sure it’s like, well, but he’s supposed to. He’s an NPC. There’s not supposed to be anything to this guy.

Laci (00:54:52):

Oh, that’s true. Maybe

Matt (00:54:53):

Then you should realize that the scripting stage, then we need to make him also be somebody trapped in the game. But he’s like,

Laci (00:55:00):

Exactly,

Matt (00:55:01):

I’m never leaving. I’m the ruler of this domain.

Laci (00:55:03):

Or he’s the reason why people get sucked into it. He’s some sort of God, he’s some sort of, you guys had a lesson to learn and I brought you here for a reason. Do that be the force. Be the reason it glows. Yeah.

Matt (00:55:15):

Be

Laci (00:55:15):

The reason it’s fucking demonic. I don’t know. You’re a demon. That works for me.

Matt (00:55:21):

So a curse is spread over the world of Jumanji because he took the jewel from the Jaguar himself. The Jaguar.

Laci (00:55:27):

What was he going to do with it? I mean, the world is Jumanji, where are you going to go?

Matt (00:55:30):

Yeah, they’re like a curse is spread over the land. It’s like, well, how’s it different?

Laci (00:55:33):

It

Matt (00:55:33):

Looks, it

Laci (00:55:33):

Looks pretty good. Yeah,

Matt (00:55:34):

It looks fine.

Laci (00:55:35):

It’s delightful. Where was his shot?

Matt (00:55:37):

Honolulu. I mean Hawaii. Honolulu’s in Hawaii.

Laci (00:55:41):

Yeah. I accept both,

Matt (00:55:43):

But I mean Honolulu’s the city. This is all of the Hawaii.

Laci (00:55:47):

This is the Hawaii

Matt (00:55:47):

Stuff. So he took the jewel for himself and this gave him the power to control animals. But then this

Laci (00:55:54):

Guy, he just uses it to make sure that they definitely go in his mouth and butt. I have all the power go up my nose beetle.

Matt (00:56:01):

I guess at a certain point you’re like,

Laci (00:56:03):

I’m one with these butts.

Matt (00:56:04):

I really have to push the boundaries or I just kind of miss them when they’re not there. Or

Laci (00:56:07):

Just a whole bunch of gerbils in his butt. Just a whole bunch.

Matt (00:56:10):

It’s like how you and I hold hands when we’re driving sometimes

Laci (00:56:13):

We can’t stop it.

Matt (00:56:15):

You need it.

Laci (00:56:16):

We need to touch you.

Matt (00:56:18):

Nigel Billingsley though, he’s like, well, then I went and stole the jewel from Mr. Bobby kind of holy and now he wants to find it. Here you go. And he hands it over to the rock and they’re like, you have to return it to the jaguar’s eye. It’s like a really, I think intentionally over the top fetch quest of return. This too, the jewel. And then you got to put the thing in the thing and then also shout out the thing. And remember, if you ever get in trouble, you have to do this. And there’s a bunch of rhymes and riddles and so they’re off. This is their quest. Then they look

Laci (00:56:50):

At Bethany’s face. She’s so delighted. Jack Black. Really? This might be one of my favorite performances from him ever. And he’s just such a delightful soul.

Matt (00:57:00):

I was going to ask what’s above this?

Laci (00:57:03):

I don’t know. Yeah, no, I mean I used to like him in shallow hell until I realized what a disgusting fucking movie that is. I like him so mild and nice. I don’t like him when he is a little stinker and that’s kind of his thing. So I like him in high fidelity, but he doesn’t have a lot to do.

Matt (00:57:19):

Yeah, I mean, high fidelity would probably be my favorite, but it’s this much smaller performance. Such a smaller,

Laci (00:57:23):

Right. I like it when he is chill and I know that he’s a funny person, so I like that he’s given something funny to do here and he does it with such, it could be so overdone and it’s not.

Matt (00:57:34):

Yes, if it’s a it’s

Laci (00:57:36):

Committed. That’s what you called it. And that is exactly what it is.

Matt (00:57:39):

It’s so committed. And so that might be what, B, why I say it’s his best performance without it being offensive. Then again, I’m not like a trans person, so what do I know? Maybe it is

Laci (00:57:48):

Right. Well, and you could say that he’s playing it like an ate gay person as well, and we’re not that either, but I think he handled it with some nuance.

Matt (00:57:59):

I really like him in King Kong actually. I think he’s really good in that.

Laci (00:58:02):

I haven’t seen or don’t remember that.

Matt (00:58:05):

So there are various, they each get to see on screen their attributes. Dr. Smolder, brave Stone has, he’s, his strengths include that he’s fearless. He can climb, he has speed, his weakness, none. But there’s Dr. Sheldon, whatevers. Can

Laci (00:58:25):

We just say Bethany?

Matt (00:58:26):

Yeah, Bethany. What are her strengths? What does she do? She’s a map

Laci (00:58:30):

Photographer.

Matt (00:58:32):

I read maps.

Laci (00:58:34):

I thought she had one other thing. And the nurse, her weaknesses are speed.

Matt (00:58:39):

Kevin, Kevin Hart, his attributes are he hands weapons to Dr. Smolder? Yes.

Laci (00:58:45):

Yes. And Zoology. He’s a zoologist. And

Matt (00:58:47):

He’s a zoologist. But I really love this weakness. Strength. How can your strength be a weakness?

Laci (00:58:53):

Be my weakness.

Matt (00:58:55):

It’s just he’s not very strong. No. And he’s not fast. Also, he has a weakness for cake.

Laci (00:59:02):

Cake makes me explode.

Matt (00:59:04):

And then Ruby Brown house, her weaknesses venom, but one of her strengths, dance fighting, dance

Laci (00:59:10):

Fighting. And that comes up more than once. You don’t expect it. It’s twice.

Matt (00:59:14):

Some motorcycle guys arrive and chase after them. And it is funny how Kevin Hart is outraged that he’s so slow.

Laci (00:59:20):

It’s like, come on legs. It isn’t. I mean, it’s nice. They all needed to swap and feel that there’s another side to their personality. Spencer had completely internalized his mom’s fears and decided everything was dangerous and he’s weak, but he’s not. And he can make choices and he makes them all the time. In fact, choosing to cheat for someone because you’re trying to socially get back in their good graces, that’s not weak. That was a brave choice. And so you’ve got Martha who’s put herself in a box in that. I don’t care about the way I look. I don’t care about physical stuff like sports. This is all so vapid and stupid. It’s not going to give me into Princeton. It’s like, you know what? It’s okay that you like normal things too and mainstream things and things that aren’t the most high society, not high society, but high in educational realm. What would people, higher educated people would consider important? The PE scene shows you she’s not, she’s too singularly focused and too wound tight.

Matt (01:00:28):

And choosing to focus on going to an Ivy League school is also, it’s also a vain thing to do.

Laci (01:00:34):

It’s vain, but it’s also, it’s just setting you up to be very disappointed because you’re doing that because you think prestige comes with it. And I’m sure that it does, but it’s so easy to get there and you’re on that track and then you actually make it, it’s going to really suck the first time you fail at something you set out to do and you have no practice at that. So putting yourself outside your box, doing stuff you’re not comfortable doing, that is how you actually learn and grow. But staying in your lane, just keep doing what you’re really, really good at only, and then you have no life skills

Matt (01:01:05):

Or we talked about this on our election episode with Tracy Flick, or you are going to be cursed with getting what you want. You’re going to be cursed with

Laci (01:01:13):

Going

Matt (01:01:13):

To Princeton and graduating with honors and stuff. And then what’s your life going to be? And there’s this thing that people say is when they’re in high school and they’re not popular and they’re looking at the popular kids and they’re like, well, one day

Laci (01:01:25):

Her

Matt (01:01:26):

Looks are going to fade and she’s going to be truly miserable. And the reality is actually, if you had a lot of friends in high school, you’re probably going to be happy the rest of your life. You’ll probably also have friends when you’re old. Do you agree with this?

Laci (01:01:38):

Yeah. There are different kinds of popular. In high school, there were people who did a lot of drugs and they were cool for that reason. They were also good looking, but they had this edge to them. Then there were the people who were in honors and gifted and they were cool in a way and then not in another. Then there’s all these different tracks and there is definitely a category of people who had a perfectly fine time in high school and are living a perfectly fine life now. I don’t think I used to feel like there was a role to it in growing up. It showed me it’s not so black and white.

Matt (01:02:14):

And I think that if his movie’s about anything, it’s like all of these things are so predetermined by what our bodies are like

Laci (01:02:21):

And

Matt (01:02:21):

By how society treats us because of that.

Laci (01:02:24):

And look at Martha, right? She’s confusing because she’s actually very pretty, but she’s decided all of it’s stupid. So she doesn’t allow for that to even enter her mind. She doesn’t get distracted by it. So she’s so off putting that she doesn’t have friends where she could totally be popular if she wanted to, which she’s neglecting to see is that maybe popular people have a set of skills she doesn’t, which are social adapting skills and knowing what people need and being someone that people can connect to. Not every popular person is hot.

Matt (01:02:55):

I guess that’s what I was trying to say. It’s

Laci (01:02:57):

A different set of skills. She’s good at insulating herself and that’s not really helpful.

Matt (01:03:02):

I guess that’s what I was trying to say. And you’re right that yeah, people are popular for lots of different reasons. I guess I meant if you have that ability to,

Laci (01:03:09):

People

Matt (01:03:09):

Gravitate to you, that’s actually a way more valuable skill than anything that a nerd who studies a lot is going to be able to get

Laci (01:03:18):

Right. And so everyone knew who I was. So if you could say that that’s popular. Then I was popular, but tons of people made fun of me and I got picked on a lot. But because I was like a connector and a floater, I could go between groups seamlessly. And so that was a sort of skill in that ability to do that, to read a room, to know how to code switch when I need to. That has helped me my whole life the same way it did in high school. You just bring that with you, right?

Matt (01:03:49):

And in the exact same. I definitely, if I think about my life and my arc, I think I grew so much since high school, but when I was in high school, the role that I had for myself was like, I’m quiet. I don’t have a lot of friends. I kind of lurk in the background, but I will surprise people. They’re like, oh, that guy’s actually funny, right? Oh,

Laci (01:04:09):

He’s actually really skilled in music

Matt (01:04:12):

And that’s still the exact same thing

Laci (01:04:13):

I do. You still do the exact same thing, right? The true growth from you would be if you actually let yourself have friends, call those people friends and ask them to do things.

Matt (01:04:24):

I have friends, I call them things my friends, but I’m not available to do anything other than podcast. That’s why

Laci (01:04:31):

There is is that That’s true.

Matt (01:04:33):

Why’s why I have my standing podcast date with Patrick. That’s why I get together with all my podcasting friends.

Laci (01:04:38):

Well, that’s how we get together. The podcast has helped you. And I keep our senders, huh?

Matt (01:04:45):

Keep Anita at bay

Laci (01:04:47):

Down, Anita.

Matt (01:04:49):

Alright, so the bad guys a chase, a Michael Bay and they have to run away from that.

Laci (01:04:55):

Here’s where we can see our first bits of how the action is going to kind of get in the way. Now maybe it’s just a boring first moment. Oh, it’s motorcycles run and it’s like they’re going way too slow for this to be effective, but don’t. It’s all suspend your disbelief, but it very much just feels like, okay, let’s get through the action so they can talk again. Because when they talk, they’re funny,

Matt (01:05:20):

Right? None of these action sequences are very exciting.

Laci (01:05:25):

They just served to, they’re very perfu, give each other favors. It teaches smolder that he can be brave, that it doesn’t matter if you look like this, you just have to act. It teaches Bethany that she is valuable and can serve with her teaching someone supporting someone. The thing she says about support me as a woman, she means it because she totally takes Martha under her wing who’s not nice to her and gives her the confidence she needs to go do what she needs to do. So it’s like Martha’s learning mean. Sorry, Bethany is learning. She has this whole other skillset that’s not tied to her looks at all. And she can look just like that and make three best friends or four

(01:06:08):

To the point that someone named their kid after you. That’s what an impact you had while being probably what you thought would be the ugliest thing you could be. Even though Jack Black is adorable and then fridge who has all of his confidence and future in his body. Well he’s just one broken leg from not having that future at all. So it’s great thing to learn, to be slow and to see things from a slow person’s perspective and to appreciate what slow people around you can do for you have your back and have your supplies and think of something you didn’t think of. This movie is just full of good little things in here.

Matt (01:06:47):

If

Laci (01:06:47):

Only they could have included the action into it.

Matt (01:06:50):

Well, and we keep saying this, this is basic screenwriting seminar stuff. It’s like what is the message of the movie? It’s like, well, everyone has a part to play. We all have our own little unique skills and values and that is hack corporate media stuff. But

Laci (01:07:04):

It flips that, Matt. It is. Is that, but we all have skills we don’t value and we’re going to learn to value them through this game.

Matt (01:07:13):

It’s

Laci (01:07:14):

Not the same as, you didn’t know I could do this. No, you didn’t know you could do that.

Matt (01:07:19):

Okay. I like that.

Laci (01:07:19):

That’s why they all ended up in the same place. That’s the whole thing with the first one too. It’s like a fate thing, right? It’s like the right people get moved by this game, get wounded and traumatized by this fucking game. Apparently the fucking guy from the nineties was just a real twat. So he had to stay in there for 20 years.

Matt (01:07:34):

I remember nothing about the nineties movie.

Laci (01:07:36):

I don’t either, except that it was overly sad. And this movie has a couple moments where I’m like, this doesn’t need to be this sad. Well, just how devastated seaplane is when he realizes he’s been in there for 20 years, that what he’s put his dad through. I mean they kind of hint he was probably doing drugs or something, right? He was going down a path. His dad’s like this wholesome guy. He’s in this beautiful house and this neighborhood and the guy, this dad’s like, look a board game. We could connect over this sun slams a door in his face when all he wants to do is video games and rock out. But he’s probably, you got to be careful who you loiter with. He was probably hanging out with a bad crowd crowd. That’s why the dad yells that, right? That’s why the dad thinks that’s what happened. So I’m just saying he probably needed some more time in there to appreciate that the dad and mommy has and the life he could have because he could have the best life ever because he’s a rich white kid who doesn’t need to choose to be this metal punk kid who takes drugs.

Matt (01:08:36):

Nothing wrong with doing drugs and

Laci (01:08:38):

Punk I love, but that’s my read.

Matt (01:08:40):

Jumanji is aah. It knows what you need and it will give it to you, but you need to open your heart to it. And Laci will be rewatching avatar the way of water in advance of the new avatar. And if she’s still, there’s a new avatar. Yeah. Coming out this December. And

Laci (01:08:55):

Are they on the moon? How are they going to change this up?

Matt (01:08:57):

They’re going to the fire realm this time.

Laci (01:08:59):

No they’re not.

Matt (01:08:59):

It’s called fire and

Laci (01:09:01):

Ash. You’re full of shit. Really?

Matt (01:09:03):

Yeah.

Laci (01:09:04):

That sounds boring. I’m sure it’ll be beautiful

Matt (01:09:06):

Because I if I think if I let myself think about it too much, I still get mad at Laci for the things she said about Avatar too. We won’t get into it. We’ll get into it in the episode. Well, were you fucking idiot? You also thought Blade Runners slow, boring.

Laci (01:09:21):

Wait, I’m still thinking about Sea Plane. I think I’m onto something here. I think his issue, everyone has an issue and we know what it is. We don’t totally understand sea planes. We don’t get to know him, which I’m glad, but from what we do know, the game did know he needed to be in there for 20 years because if this kid really just thought he was in there for a couple days, well the thing he was trying to work out at himself wouldn’t have gotten work out, pop out and just be the same little shit he was to his dad. So I think he needed to be more appreciative of what his parents were providing for him, that his dad found a game on the beach and the first thing he thought of was turn around, go home and bring this to my son. That’s kind of interesting and special. That’s not like, that’s not business dad. This is a dad who’s very much cares about his kid. So I think he did have to be in there.

Matt (01:10:04):

Yeah, it’s a thing we can do together.

Laci (01:10:06):

I think he did have to be in there in 20 years, and I think that’s still the heaviness on his heart is he’s not thinking about, what did I miss? He doesn’t say I missed my life. He keeps bringing up what did he do to his parents and that’s why he had to pop out where he left off. But with this knowledge of what could have happened if he had to disappear for 20 years. Jumanji good on you.

Matt (01:10:27):

Maybe everybody gets sucked into a video game at a certain point, but nobody can talk about it. And at a certain point everybody’s like, my kid just one day woke up and figured it out, had a growth spread. Now they’re so appreciative and we just call it gentle and

Laci (01:10:41):

The frontal lobe development. And it’s like, no,

Matt (01:10:44):

But no, it got sucked into a video game.

Laci (01:10:45):

They went to Ji. We’re

Matt (01:10:47):

Not supposed to say

Laci (01:10:48):

It. It’s just like it’s a wellness center. It’s a spa.

Matt (01:10:54):

This is where we find out because when Martha gets shot and she’s like, guys, I’ve been shot. And then she explodes and then falls back out of the sky and now they realize the extra lives thing that you have three lives and your arm tracks it. What happens if you run out of lives? Well then it would be game of birth. We need to find the bizarre, but first we have to pee these video game characters to, they have to pee circulatory systems. And

Laci (01:11:20):

I 100%, there’s only a need to eat and pee in here for this penis joke.

Matt (01:11:26):

Oh, well, God bless it.

Laci (01:11:27):

I mean, it’s a great joke, but there’s no pooping and there’s no sleeping. So

Matt (01:11:34):

It’s just

Laci (01:11:35):

They need to do eating and peeing and that’s it.

Matt (01:11:38):

Well, if you eat, then you have to poop. It’s not,

Laci (01:11:40):

I mean it’s solely for the cake joke, the eating and the pee joke, the peeing, no poop and there’s no sleep.

Matt (01:11:47):

Well, there is margarita that gets you drunk. So blood alcohol is also a thing.

Laci (01:11:51):

Right? It’s interesting because I don’t know of any, I’m not a big video game person, but is there games where being intoxicated can affect your gameplay?

Matt (01:11:58):

Oh yeah. I think that’s definitely a thing. Really? Yeah. I think that’s a thing in the grand Thought Auto games, which I have not played since. Grand thought of Daughter three. I don’t know. Awesome. Well help us out. People we’re not gamers.

Laci (01:12:09):

Help us out.

Matt (01:12:11):

So I mean, describe the penis scene, Jack Black. Bethany has to pee. And she’s like, but I don’t know how to do it. Will you help me? And Kevin Hart’s very funny. I mean, yeah, I can help you.

Laci (01:12:22):

And it’s such an interesting,

Matt (01:12:24):

There’s no gay panic. It’s nice.

Laci (01:12:26):

It’s nice. That’s great. But it’s played as a joke, but it’s also, this is what it would be like if you could completely untangle your preconceived notions and baggage around your own dick. If you could completely remove that this dick was important to you in any kind of way and you just thought of it as you think of anything else as flapping around your body, you could just be totally amused with it and oh, this is handy. And that’s what Chee does so well in this is just talks about a dick. Dick’s don’t matter

Speaker 1 (01:13:00):

And

Laci (01:13:02):

Dick’s size does not matter because Kevin Hart’s character is completely hung up on size because his body’s different now, but at least he brought something over from the real world, which is his big giant dick. Cool. Check

Matt (01:13:13):

That out within 20 seconds. That’s what he says. Check that out. He says, he says, I checked mine 20 seconds after we got here.

Laci (01:13:21):

Oh, okay. Yeah, because it is so important to a man. I mean, it’s not like Bethany or Martha immediately went and made sure her boobs were the same size. It’s just not like that for us. It matters. But

Matt (01:13:32):

Well, at the end when she gets,

Laci (01:13:34):

I’m sorry, I meant Martha,

Matt (01:13:35):

When Bethany gets turned back into herself, she touches her boobs. She’s like, oh, I missed you guys. Yeah,

Laci (01:13:38):

She missed her body. I’m saying Martha,

Matt (01:13:41):

Martha

Laci (01:13:42):

Went from woman to woman and didn’t go check out her vagina and see if it was all the same structure and it just isn’t.

Matt (01:13:47):

This is interesting. I would’ve thought boobs are more important to a woman than a dick is to a man. Because people can see boobs

Laci (01:13:53):

As long as you have them and then you convert to having them. Yeah, I mean that’s what I’m saying. It’s not a big difference guys like boobs of all shapes and sizes. No woman’s like I love a small dick. And even if that’s true, no man would believe her. So everyone believes men when they say, I like small boobs, I like giant boobs, I like flat check. Everyone believes that you don’t need more evidence. So as long as you went from having boobs to having boobs, I think it’s probably fine. We don’t need to go check them. Also, it would feel like an invasion of privacy on the person’s body you’re wearing. We just wouldn’t do that. Let me check myself out right now. I think I would take me a long time to look at my new vagina.

Matt (01:14:32):

No, it’s not a real person.

Laci (01:14:33):

Do we have to get into an AI discussion?

Matt (01:14:35):

You can do that to an ai. You absolutely can fuck ai. You have no rights if you get transported into the soul of a human being, you have to wait. That’s what I say. You have to wait 45 minutes and then you can. But with AI you can do it right away.

Laci (01:14:48):

So if it’s like a freaky Friday, you do have to wait

Matt (01:14:51):

45 minutes.

Laci (01:14:52):

Alright, that’s fine.

Matt (01:14:53):

But after 45 minutes you can do, go ahead. Who

Laci (01:14:55):

Cares if I got switched into my mom’s body, I would never be naked again. I would not. Look,

Matt (01:15:01):

God, what a thing. I

Laci (01:15:02):

Know. If I peed, oh, I’d have to wear a Mormon sheet or something. Something just a hole. Enough to pee. Thank you. I don’t want to see any of that.

Matt (01:15:11):

I guess

Laci (01:15:12):

What if you had your dad’s body for just a day?

Matt (01:15:15):

I think that that would bother me way less than my mom’s.

Laci (01:15:17):

Oh, well sure. Yeah.

Matt (01:15:21):

So where were we? Oh yeah. So she, she’s like, oh my God, look at this. These things are nuts. My luck. Come look at my penis. And yeah, we quoted it all the time in our house. It’s great. And Martha’s like no thanks. And Bethany Jack Black is playing this with such joy like, oh my God, this is great. So much easier. You have a whole handle on it. Yeah, you have a handle,

Laci (01:15:46):

But it flops around, right? That seems uncomfortable. Ours stays put.

Matt (01:15:51):

I mean,

Laci (01:15:52):

Our tits flop around. I guess Dicks are just the tits of a man’s body.

Matt (01:15:58):

Dick to the tits of the man. Bethany starts talking to Martha and she’s like, well, because Martha does the thing where she is uncomfortable with how much skin she’s showing. So she ties a jacket around her waist,

Laci (01:16:11):

It covers up absolutely nothing

Matt (01:16:12):

But

Laci (01:16:13):

Fine.

Matt (01:16:14):

And Bethany Jack Black is like my boyfriend or my ex boyfriend Noah. He loves how much skin I show. One time I wore a bikini to school and Martha’s like, oh, you’re a slut. And she’s like, well, you don’t even know me. And then they start to be like, you know what? I always thought of you as just a popular girl and that you’re really self upsets. And I thought you were just some judgmenty bitch. But it’s really like we shouldn’t judge each other. Yeah, you’re right. Because we’re both good and special. We’ve

Laci (01:16:37):

Both got other things going on and shit. We’re trying to balance and we’re trying to use what we think that we have to get, where we think that we need. We just not might always be right.

Matt (01:16:47):

And Fridge and Spencer, they’re also unpacking why did our friendship fall apart? And fridge is like, well, you always treated me like I was stupid. And so I kind of got sick of that. And then they just gradually, they’re friends with their kids. You don’t always stay friends. Caleb Hogan will be on in our next episode, Baywatch. So they have the thing where Kevin Hart is trying to big dick the rock. He’s like, I know you’re all big and shit now, but I could beat the shit out of you. You’re still the terrified guy you always were. And he seems to be proven right. He is kind of like jumping at him and making him flinch. And then he just pushes the rock off the cliff killing him and then the rock drops back down and he gets a reserve of courage. And he punches the shit out of Kevin Hart,

Laci (01:17:31):

Which is one of the funniest physical moments in the whole movie, just fucking into the rock.

Matt (01:17:38):

And the rock.

Laci (01:17:39):

The rock puts him into the rock.

Matt (01:17:40):

The rock is about to push him over the cliff but saves him. And then he is like, no, we can’t waste lives like it or not, we have to do this together. Smooth. And then he smolders and it does that sound effect. And Jack Black and Karen Gillum both look at him and it’s like, let’s just say they’re standing on top of a waterfall

Speaker 2 (01:17:57):

And

Matt (01:17:57):

They’re both good. They’re both really good at being like, oh my God, I am trying to handle how horny I am right now for the rock.

Laci (01:18:03):

They shiver. They quiver in their loins,

Matt (01:18:06):

So they make it to the bazaar. This is our second movie this summer where the rock goes through a bazaar,

Laci (01:18:11):

Racist movies.

Matt (01:18:14):

The characters have to eat. This

Laci (01:18:15):

Man is always in the jungle. I’m just saying.

Matt (01:18:17):

Well, welcome to the jungle.

Laci (01:18:20):

Thank you Matt. Oh

Matt (01:18:21):

My God. And the rundown. You’re right. I know. I know,

Laci (01:18:24):

I know.

Matt (01:18:27):

So Jack PLAs like, I’m so hungry, I need to eat. And there’s this guy, I think this guy is the guy who is the killer in too many cooks. I can’t remember his name from the too many cooks video. Too many cooks I remember. And he has pound cake, but Jack Black, Bethany is eating it. Oh my God, this is so good. I haven’t had bread since I was seven. And then Kevin Hart’s like, no, this isn’t bread, this is cake. He’s like, well, I forgot what bread tastes like.

Laci (01:18:53):

I mean it all counts as bread.

Matt (01:18:54):

So he’s like, oh no, cake is my weakness. They’re like, oh fuck. He’s like, it’s okay. I think everything’s fine.

Laci (01:19:01):

Am I still black?

Matt (01:19:03):

I think the movie has really, really good comic timing with this right now. He’s like, okay, everything’s fine. Everything’s fine. Pause, pause, pause. I think everything from this moment on is going to happen just, and then he explodes it. It’s the most, he tells somebody what’s going to happen and then make them wait for it to happen. And it’s funnier. So a little street urchin comes up and guides them to a room with a snake basket. This is the second snake basket rock movie. And the snake still looks bad in CGI 15 years later.

Laci (01:19:31):

And interesting that venom is her one weakness Ruby roundhouse. And this is not the scene where we need to worry about that.

Matt (01:19:38):

Right? It’s like, okay, so

Laci (01:19:39):

Why then? Why have a snake here? It could have been anything else because you’re going to do the snake floor later. And if that’s important, pick one.

Matt (01:19:47):

And if you have to point out that she’s vulnerable to venom, does that mean the others are not? And therefore they should handle the snake, right?

Laci (01:19:53):

Otherwise, why are you letting her do that? Why are she in the room?

Matt (01:19:58):

Kevin Hart uses his zoology skills to defang the cobra and there’s an elephant like totem or whatever and learn. We all have skills. We need to work together. That’s how we’ll do it.

Laci (01:20:08):

And we need to trust ourselves and not be afraid of our new skills because new skills can be just as valuable. You can be just as valuable part of the team with something you didn’t value before. Like intelligence. If you’re a sports guy,

Matt (01:20:20):

Now I know animals and stuff and that’s weird, but you know what? It’s pretty cool too. Did you know Laci, that there’s three types of mammals that lay eggs? Isn’t that creepy as hell to think about? A platypus will lay eggs.

Laci (01:20:34):

You mean three different animals or three types?

Matt (01:20:35):

Three different mammals. Because mammals do not lay eggs, right? They

Laci (01:20:39):

Give

Matt (01:20:39):

Live birth and have placenta and they have mammalian breasts give milk to the babies. But there’s three types of mammals, the platypus, the kinna, and the third That I don’t remember.

Laci (01:20:51):

Yeah, well, okay, but do they still breastfeed?

Matt (01:20:54):

I don’t remember.

Laci (01:20:55):

That would be really weird.

Matt (01:20:58):

I mean they’re like snakes that give live birth.

Laci (01:21:00):

What? Wait, they snake another snake.

Matt (01:21:03):

There are snakes that don’t lay eggs. They give live birth. They have live birth.

Laci (01:21:06):

They snake a snake. They snake a snake. Yes. They shoot themselves out of themselves.

Matt (01:21:11):

They give birth to themselves. Holy fuck. It’s like that south park where Kenny dies and gets replaced with another Kenny.

Laci (01:21:16):

Yeah, but watch a Kenny come out of Akin. I need to see this. I’m sure they’re tiny though, right? And it’s not going to just look the same.

Matt (01:21:23):

Platypus do have milk. Okay, snakes that give birth. Look at that little baby.

Laci (01:21:29):

Where’s a baby? That’s the mom.

Matt (01:21:30):

No, right here. That’s not the baby that’s already been born. There’s another baby. Oh, they have more than one. Yeah, a litter

Laci (01:21:38):

Snake and her snakes. What do you do? What do you do when it happens though? How do they eat? Very good. Do little crickets come out of her nipples?

Matt (01:21:49):

How

Laci (01:21:49):

Do you

Matt (01:21:49):

Feed it? I mean the same way all of others, I don’t know. How do they feed

Laci (01:21:55):

These? I

Matt (01:21:56):

Little crickets come out of the nipples. That’s right. And little mice come out of her butt. So the bad guys show up at the bazaar and they chase them. But the rock suddenly realizes he’s a great fighter and he starts doing what he does at the beginning of the week, uppercut punch, jump. Wow.

Laci (01:22:11):

Into the wall up to the sky. And

Matt (01:22:12):

There’s a funny moment where he says to the team, he’s like, alright guys, let’s do this. And Kevin Hart’s like, do what? You’re doing it all. And then Bobby Canali shows up. It looks like everything is lost for them, but then someone arrives, throws smoke bombs. Guys follow me. And it’s Nick Jonas.

Speaker 1 (01:22:28):

He

Matt (01:22:29):

Plays Alex slash Mr C plane and he guides them through an underground caverns. He knows all the tricks of this place. This is the kid from the beginning of the movie, the guy whose dad owns the freak house. And we could see,

Laci (01:22:40):

To be fair, it was the best house in the neighborhood before it was the freak house.

Matt (01:22:44):

How ironic. We could see Bethany is already kind of getting a crush on him and he leads them safely to the forest where he is a tree house layer. And I think Nick Jonas is really bad in this movie.

Laci (01:22:57):

Is he really good in other movies?

Matt (01:22:59):

I have no idea. I’m just saying that it is always a bummer Every time I’ve watched this movie, they’re like, oh, now he’s part of the team.

Laci (01:23:04):

Well they such

Matt (01:23:05):

He can’t sell the jokes.

Laci (01:23:06):

They have such charismatic people. Otherwise why do this? I know he needs to be hot, but just put Ryan Reynolds in this shit. Too old probably, but I mean he is fine. But it’s interesting because once you just decide that this character’s not going to be all that moving, you just go, I guess that was the point. These not the star, the other four are so we can’t just have someone coming in here and stealing.

Matt (01:23:31):

You usually say that.

Laci (01:23:32):

I always say that.

Matt (01:23:33):

There

Laci (01:23:34):

Was a reason, Matt.

Matt (01:23:34):

No, I’m sure they were not like, hey, let’s get someone who’s not good. Anyway, this tree house who was built by Alan Ridge, he’s of course the character Robin Williams played in the first movie. We’re only here because of Alan. We’re standing on the shoulders, the giant broad shoulders of Alan and his genie magic.

Laci (01:23:52):

And he was an alcoholic.

Matt (01:23:55):

He loved margarita Margaritas like me on a Friday. Nick Jonas, he’s down to one life and he’s been living in this game so long, he’s terrified to take risks because now he only has one life and they’re like, oh, you’re the missing piece to our team. We need you. You’re our best friend now. Alright, so there

Speaker 1 (01:24:13):

We go. They

Matt (01:24:14):

Have to go down to the transportation shed, but it’s being guarded by a bunch of NPC dudes. So now they’re like, Bethany, you, but you got to distract them with your sexiness. She’s like, but I don’t know how to be sexy and

Laci (01:24:25):

Jack Black. Yeah, but you do know TaeKwonDo, right? She just go do that. But fine because it’s a very funny scene of Jack Black teaching her how to be sexy and her doing the things he’s saying, but not doing them sexy.

Matt (01:24:38):

You can’t

Laci (01:24:39):

Into this.

Matt (01:24:40):

And he’s doing them very well.

Laci (01:24:41):

Yes.

Matt (01:24:41):

Just kind of put your tongue out of the H mouth

Laci (01:24:43):

Like,

Matt (01:24:43):

Oh my God, you’re so funny

Laci (01:24:45):

Guy. You’re doing dumb.

Matt (01:24:47):

Like I’ve never talked to a guy. I don’t know how to talk to guys. I’ve never flirted. Okay, well I’ll teach you and you got to kind of walk like this. All right, now sparkle like an anime character and she goes down and she’s not doing a good job and the guys are watching her and they’re like, well, she’s kind of awkward. This is what Nick Jonas says, but she’s still a pretty fly. I’d like to get jiggy with her,

Laci (01:25:07):

But wait, crucially, this shows a lot of character from Bethany, a popular girl who is hot, who could take all this very much for granted though this kind of shows you, she’s just as studied at it, right? You’ve got Martha who studies one thing, Bey’s been studying the other, she’s working just as hard for this other kind of status. So she’s teaching it as though it is a skill to learn. And then when she doesn’t get it right, right away, she could totally popular mean girl this and be like loser or make fun of her. But she doesn’t. She takes up for her. She’s a very nice person and she’s definitely got Martha’s back, which it didn’t have to be like that.

Matt (01:25:46):

Right?

Laci (01:25:47):

I’m glad that it is. And

Matt (01:25:48):

Positive reinforcement. Let’s prop each other up. Let’s hold each other up. So she goes down,

Laci (01:25:55):

Oh, you were saying

Matt (01:25:55):

The gig. I like Giggy. Yeah. And they’re like, sorry, what year do you think it is? 1996. Oh my God. No. And he’s like, oh, I’ve been trapping video game for two decades. Oh

Laci (01:26:05):

No. Oh no. I wish I had my brothers with me. Why did I say it like that? He’s not Oasis.

Matt (01:26:11):

My Jonas brothers.

Laci (01:26:12):

He’s not Oasis. I wish I had my brothers with me.

Matt (01:26:15):

Well, he does have,

Laci (01:26:16):

Yes, but I said it in a fucking English accent. Matt, are

Matt (01:26:18):

They not British?

Laci (01:26:20):

I

Matt (01:26:20):

Have no idea.

Laci (01:26:20):

I thought American,

Matt (01:26:23):

American.

Laci (01:26:25):

They’re American, right? They seem like apple pie. Just ask the question, Matt. Don’t go to W American. I know.

Matt (01:26:33):

It’s the most inefficient thing I do. I know. I type in wikipedia.org org. He goes

Laci (01:26:37):

To google.com and then he googled it. He googles google.com and then he goes into it.

Matt (01:26:44):

I got Google. Siri, take me to Google. So Karen,

Laci (01:26:49):

You’re going to act. Don’t just say stuff, Matt. You’re going to activate something.

Matt (01:26:52):

Karen Gil goes down there to flirt with him. She does her nebula voice like, gosh, can you help me out with something?

Speaker 1 (01:26:59):

I’ve got to take a wicked shit.

Matt (01:27:01):

I have to tell you about this book I’ve been reading about microbiology. It’s my favorite. And then it’s not working. So she just dance fights them while, Ooh, baby, I love you.

Laci (01:27:10):

It’s a good song. Forget how good it is.

Matt (01:27:13):

And while she’s doing that,

Speaker 2 (01:27:16):

Wicked wow, wow.

Matt (01:27:16):

The boys get in, they’re like, wow, damn. She rules, there’s a helicopter, but Nick Jonas is afraid to fly. He’s like, I can’t fly that. I’m too afraid. They’re like, oh gee whiz. You don’t have to be afraid. Kevin Hart is then very good. This is our only clip from the movie. I just like the way he convinces himself. He can fly it.

Speaker 6 (01:27:34):

How hard can it be? It’s a helicopter. You press a button, they going to spin. Okay, then after that I got the lever. That’s how you getting your forward backward action. Once we’re in the air, I’m going to be all right. I just got to get, because I ain’t got no steps Stool. Lemme see something. You know what? I could probably get in, but careful. No, you’re drunk.

Matt (01:27:58):

The lever.

Laci (01:27:59):

That’s how you going to get the forward and backwards action.

Matt (01:28:03):

I guess here’s what I’ll explain the joke. Why I think it’s so funny is because he says it’s like, but once I get in the air I’ll be good. I

Laci (01:28:09):

Would be fine. Right? I’m going to be all right.

Matt (01:28:11):

Why? So the helicopter chase starts off as a pretty okay action sequence just because they’re falling down into the canyon. They’re like, oh no. But then they stabilize and they’re getting chased by rhinos and stuff, and the rock fixes the helicopter. But Kevin Hart drops the Juul. He’s like, ah, guys, I dropped. Yep, we’re

Laci (01:28:30):

Going to need a

Matt (01:28:31):

Drop. The we’re do it.

Laci (01:28:33):

We’re going to have to.

Matt (01:28:34):

We’re just all going to have to work together. Going to have to work together. Circle

Laci (01:28:37):

Back, circle back.

Matt (01:28:38):

Speaking of Patrick, you were here for this. This reminded me we were going to a concert that

Laci (01:28:43):

We were playing. Oh God, I know what you’re going to

Matt (01:28:44):

Do. We left. We were 10 miles away and Patrick’s like, Hey Matt, I forgot my wallet.

Laci (01:28:49):

Got my wallet. We’re going to need a,

Matt (01:28:51):

And he was preemptively. And if you get mad at me, you’re an asshole because we’re just going to have to accept that I left my wallet and we have to deal with it. And that we have to turn around. And so I know that you’re wanting to get upset, but you don’t have to get upset because just go ahead and get over it. I don’t know. Just an interesting way

Laci (01:29:09):

He is. I know this is the most me thing I could have done. Right? That’s where we could start with this, is that you do this to us.

Matt (01:29:15):

They make it, they win. They get past the rhinos fucking,

Laci (01:29:19):

Can you change the slide? I can’t look at this. I hate kissing. And you always want

Matt (01:29:24):

To, that’s not kissing. That’s CPR.

Laci (01:29:26):

Okay. It’s so different. It’s the mouth on mouth intimate shit that I don’t, I’m doing the most not kind of thing. My brain wants to do work right now for a client, which is going through thousands and thousands of raw photos of engagement sessions and weddings, trying to find the pictures that these brides paid for that they didn’t get. And so they’re suing to get them, and I’m trying to help them find them. And every fucking photo is this intimate like, oh, because it’s like it’s staged, kissing. It’s so thousands and thousands of.

Matt (01:30:06):

So yeah, that is a true struggle for you to not just come sick, sick,

Laci (01:30:11):

Sick. Well, and I have to identify these people by their faces. I mean, I can identify them by their clothes, but if I haven’t, we do not have pictures to start with these brides. So I’ve had to use social media, but sometimes this doesn’t do the trick. And everybody doesn’t always look the same in one picture as the other. And when every fucking picture is the side profile smooshed against another side profile, I can’t tell. These bitches are

Matt (01:30:34):

Laci’s job takes her to some weird places. Yes. I went to your desk one time and she was just legit watching porn pornography and watching pornography. There was a good reason. And you were like, this is for work. And it was true. You were being paid to watch this pornography.

Laci (01:30:48):

It wasn’t a lot of pornography. And there was a good reason why I was watching.

Matt (01:30:51):

It was a good reason. You were writing reviews.

Laci (01:30:54):

No, I was trying to see if someone’s ex-husband was in

Matt (01:30:57):

It. No, don’t even explain.

Laci (01:30:58):

Okay.

Matt (01:31:00):

So Nick Jonas is like, guys, do you know how huge this is? I’ve been waiting 20 years to get this far in the game. Wow, what a great time. And then he gets bitten by a mosquito and drops dead. And then Jack Black drops down and does CPR and her extra life transfers over to him. I think it’s actually a neat little idea.

Laci (01:31:15):

It is a neat little idea.

Matt (01:31:16):

And he wakes up and he’s kind of in love with Jack Black. And surely there won’t be more mosquitoes where that came from. No,

Laci (01:31:23):

They only travel in once and

Matt (01:31:25):

They travel in once he hugs her, thank you for saving my life. Hug. And he walks away and they’re like, Bethany, you got a situation? She looks down at her erection. She’s like, these things are crazy.

Laci (01:31:38):

Okay, wait, did we already see the attempted kissing moment?

Matt (01:31:41):

No.

Laci (01:31:42):

Okay, because I just want to point out how sensual Jack Black giving lifesaving CPR to someone was because it’s human touch. Both of them are comfortable with human touch and emotions and showing emotion and not restraining themselves. And then we go to the rock trying to do this,

Matt (01:32:02):

But it’s played for comedy when he does it.

Laci (01:32:04):

Oh no, that’s fine.

Matt (01:32:06):

You’re saying any rock kiss?

Laci (01:32:08):

Yes, I’m relieved. It’s a comedic kiss that’s supposed to be awkward because his kisses are always awkward.

Matt (01:32:14):

So they, Martha and the Rock, Spencer and Martha, they’re like, can I tell you, I’ve been fully into you since the seventh grade. And she’s like, oh my God, this has never happened to me before. But I like you too. God, you’re so smart and sweet and cute. And he’s like, it’s not just because I look like this. She’s like, no, that’s not even my type. I mean a nerds. And then they kiss, but it’s hilarious. They don’t know how to kiss and they’re just like, whoa.

Laci (01:32:40):

And I would say, Hey, over the top movie. But my first kiss was this, and it was a fucking shit show.

Matt (01:32:46):

Oh yeah. I had mine too.

Laci (01:32:48):

It was at a dance.

Matt (01:32:49):

Mine was with my girlfriend when I was 18 years old.

Laci (01:32:53):

You don’t know when to pull back. The first parts are probably going fine, but then you move too soon or you’re not anticipating each other’s movements. And then someone’s on a cheek looking an ear, you dunno when to retract your tongue back. And

Matt (01:33:07):

Yeah, so we were like, well lot a mechanic. Okay, we’re going to have to work on this. We need some coaching.

Laci (01:33:14):

So they came to me.

Matt (01:33:15):

So Kevin Hart’s how we met,

Laci (01:33:17):

That’s the first time I met

Matt (01:33:18):

Kevin Hart interrupts them. And he is like, Hey guys, I found the Jaguar. The Jaguar. Oh, the Jaguar is a giant mountain rock.

Laci (01:33:29):

It’s a rock for me.

Matt (01:33:32):

And Spencer’s like, wait a minute. We can’t take the straightforward path. I played a lot of video games and I know you don’t do that. You don’t take the easy path. We got to go through the fucking trees or something. And he starts, he climbs, but then he instantly gets killed by a Jaguar. So he comes back and he pulls fridge aside and he is like, dude, I can’t do this anymore. I only have one life left. I’m not brave anymore. And Kevin Hart’s like, man, we always only have one life. You just got to decide

Laci (01:33:57):

What you’re

Matt (01:33:57):

Going to do

Laci (01:33:57):

With it. Dang, dang Replicants. Sorry, replicants. It’s just harkening back to sling blade, not sling Blade, blade run here. If doesn’t matter if it’s four years or a lifetime, it’s always just one life.

Matt (01:34:11):

Did you come around on Rutger Hower as Roy Batty? You did not like that performance, but that’s like an electronic,

Laci (01:34:19):

He makes me uncomfortable. But of course I love him at the end. And again, this is a movie. I think I have to have all the knowledge of it and then rewatch it close together and to get all that I missed. But I mean, wasn’t the only one that struggled with the pacing the pace. If you’re watching it as high art and you’re not. The thing is, if Harrison Ford doesn’t do it for you, and there are people who feel that way, then you’re going to struggle with getting through the slower moments.

Matt (01:34:48):

I guess it is the reality that you have to tell somebody, this is a movie that you have to understand. You’re going to need to pay attention, don’t have your phone.

Laci (01:34:57):

And I did.

Matt (01:34:58):

No, I’m just saying. And be prepared that this is not going to move at the blockbuster pace you’re used to.

Laci (01:35:05):

You can be prepared, but it still doesn’t make you want to sit through it.

(01:35:10):

What I ended up feeling was that it’s about capitalism and it’s about how we’re all just replicants and we’re all disposable for people who can pay for us. Decker is pulled in not even wanting to do it under false pres of being arrested. He doesn’t even want to do the work he’s doing. He’s forced to do it. And that’s because the interest of Tyrell are just so important. So of course it’s a very rich person gets to tell me what I’m going to do and that I might be, and if I die, okay, they already had someone killed for this person’s mistake and I’ll just be the next person killed. And so if you’re watching the movie, I felt it saved all the humanity and empathy to feel for the replicants too far into the ending. But if you’re thinking about it as though you’re walking through it through the eyes of the way that the world is marketing to get you to see it, want you to see replicants, they want you to forget that they have any humanity.

(01:36:14):

So you start with the sex worker and she’s fucking a snake and Eve and Garden of Eden, and it’s all very like, how could you have any sympathy for this fucking snake fucker? And then you go to the guy that already killed a guy. Hey, that guy already killed a guy. Yeah, that guy killed a guy who was going to kill him. But no, he’s bad. That Republican’s bad because he already killed and they killed, they’re killing because they’re being killed. You don’t think about that, but you get a little bit more humanity from him. And then you go on to the pri, who’s hard to, because you don’t know what she’s going to do to this very nice man. But then seeing her love with what’s his name

Matt (01:36:53):

With Sebastian?

Laci (01:36:54):

Sebastian is the main replicant,

Matt (01:36:57):

Oh sorry, with Roy.

Laci (01:36:58):

With Roy. That kind of humanizes them. But it seems kind of like a Bonnie and Clyde thing. But how sad he is when she dies is what’s the first step of like, no, that was true love. You just start to realize, oh, I’ve been this always framed in a way to manipulate me and to not liking these replicants I am being sold with. The movie is selling. Its people who live on earth.

Matt (01:37:23):

And when a movie is like the way you experience it is key to understanding what it’s saying. You have to just live in the slowness of it and in the bleakness of it that is off-putting for people because

Laci (01:37:44):

That reality would be offing. And this is why the unicorn metaphor bothered me, because what I thought they were saying, and I thought he was dreaming about a unicorn, is that this is the replicant. She’s the one that deserves to live. She’s the perfect replicant. Don’t worry. You’re falling in love with the one that they’re not going to kill. She’s going to live. That’s what I thought that meant. And it’s like she’s the only one worth saving that’s fucked up. They’re just going to make you kill more later. Why is she the only one that gets to live? Because she’s so sweet and won’t kill anybody. People kill when they’re being attacked. But everyone, I mean all the people who love the movie agree that he’s a replicant as well. It’s just that they leave it. So

Matt (01:38:28):

See, I have not watched the second half of the movie in a few years. So I watched the first half with you and then stopped and then I didn’t the next day. And I’ve seen the movie many, many times, but I don’t remember the specifics of Rachel getting to live.

Laci (01:38:40):

Yeah, Rachel

Matt (01:38:41):

Lives, I never read it as she will get to live beyond her four year life period.

Laci (01:38:44):

Well, no, but we all only get a short life.

Matt (01:38:46):

But that’s always what I’ve taken away from it.

Laci (01:38:48):

He

Matt (01:38:48):

Too is a replicant, but like what she said, but it doesn’t matter if he’s a replicant, because even if you’re not a replicant, you’re a replicant. We’re just going to,

Laci (01:38:57):

You’re going to die. We’re all going to die.

Matt (01:38:59):

So this has been our Blade Runner corner.

Laci (01:39:01):

Okay.

Matt (01:39:03):

So it’s the final showdown. They got to get up to the fucking Jaguar and do I need to explain it? They do.

Laci (01:39:11):

They do it.

Matt (01:39:13):

Everybody gets to play a part. The Rock and Karen Gillian get a cool badass thing. They shove the thing into the thing and then they’re like, wait a minute, but we haven’t won the game. And everybody’s like, you have to shout out the name Jumanji. So they just shout Jim Marketing, Hey, what do you know? Game over Nigel Thorn’s B comes back and he is like, oh, great job everybody. Now I shake your hand and you get the fuck out of here. And so they all leave, but the Rock and Karen Gillen are left. And he’s like, wait a minute, I don’t know if I want to go back to the real world. I’m hot here and stuff. And he’s like, well, come with me and we’ll be hot. Okay. Yeah. They do it. It’s very, very brief, this idea of maybe we should just stay here.

Laci (01:39:49):

But that’s the whole point. These things go with us. We were already these things. We just didn’t see ourselves as these things we boxed ourselves in. But you can be a person I have a crush on because I’ve had a crush on you for years.

Matt (01:40:01):

And

Laci (01:40:02):

I am that too, because you see me that way. So let’s just act that way now.

Matt (01:40:08):

Any of us can step out of ourselves in any moment and realize none of this shit matters. And I actually do mean that. It’s the most important thing

Laci (01:40:16):

I’ve learned in my life. Which shit,

Matt (01:40:19):

Anything that what people think about you, that whether they’re wrong about you, whether they have incorrect ideas, you can actually internalize that and be less bothered. And that allows you to take more chances. They’re back. The shit I say on this podcast, come on,

Speaker 1 (01:40:37):

Come on.

Matt (01:40:37):

So they’re back at school. Anyone actually listen

Laci (01:40:39):

To it?

Matt (01:40:40):

They’re back at school out of the video video game. But wait a minute, where’s Alex? So they walk over to the freak house, but it’s not a freak house anymore. It’s a normal house.

Laci (01:40:48):

It’s not just normal house. It’s beautiful again.

Matt (01:40:50):

Now it’s a Christmas movie,

Laci (01:40:52):

Right? It turned Christmas. So they were gone a little while, huh? Were they? I dunno. No, they’re not. They’re not. It just wasn’t Christmas before they went in. I don’t understand why it’s Christmas now

Matt (01:41:02):

Because it’s like November 15th, but everybody’s putting out their shit and Colin Hanks is delivering his dad a Christmas tree and they’re like, that’s Alex all grown up. And he sees them and he is like, oh, hey guys, I love you so much that I need my baby after you Bethany.

Laci (01:41:17):

It’s a touching scene. He’s been waiting 20 years to see them. That’s kind of crazy. He had to go live that 20 years and knew this part would happen. He just didn’t know when

Matt (01:41:27):

He named her after the girl who saved his life.

Laci (01:41:30):

I got goosebumps again. I get it every time.

Matt (01:41:33):

I get it. Every time. For whatever reason, somebody naming their kid after that never works for me. Ever.

Laci (01:41:39):

Oh, come on. You have to say the name every day and remember that person every day. True.

Matt (01:41:44):

True. It’s no longer their name. True. It’s just the word’s

Laci (01:41:46):

Not, I think my mean all the time because of what we named our kid.

Matt (01:41:49):

No, you don’t.

Laci (01:41:50):

I don’t think of it every time I say it, but I think about her way more often because of doing that. What do you mean? No, I don’t. Well, good for you. If someone saved your life and then you named your kid that I think they might enter your mind every now and then. Matt,

Matt (01:42:03):

I think exactly as often they go back to school the next day. They’re all friends and Martha or Bethany’s going up to her popular friend and she’s like, you really want to go camping? And she’s like, yeah, I just think camping would be cool. Okay, I don’t even know you. But she goes and hangs out with the door Spencer and the jock fridge, and they’re like, there’s Martha. Why don’t you go put a kiss on her face? And he does. And they kiss

Laci (01:42:28):

At school. Ew.

Matt (01:42:30):

And I know I put this kiss on screen because you said this one

Laci (01:42:33):

Isn’t bothering me.

Matt (01:42:34):

You said that’s more chemistry than the rocks ever had with anybody is these children kissing each other. But they’re breaking up in two months when her grades starts slipping and she finds out she has to go to Brown instead of Princeton. She’s a cold-hearted killer. She’s cutting him loose, but they hear some thumping drums and they’re like, uhoh, it’s happening again.

Laci (01:42:53):

Something about that sound makes me scared. No shit.

Matt (01:42:57):

But now they just drop the bowling ball. That was in the school janitor closet onto video game console and that’s that.

Laci (01:43:03):

No people will ever learn a good lesson about themselves ever again

Matt (01:43:07):

Crush. Welcome to the jungle name. That’s Jumanji. Welcome to the jungle.

Laci (01:43:15):

I forgot to give it a star review. You

Matt (01:43:17):

Say that every time? Yes.

Laci (01:43:36):

I am just going to go off the cuff and say four, she’s going off shut up four. Because I do think it missed the trick with action. That shouldn’t just be an afterthought if you’re going to put it it in there at all. And for that, those moments drug, it wasn’t like a certain act drug. It was every time we had to go through auction. And I don’t care about the bad guy. So every time he was on screen, I was bored and grossed out because you chose to put beetles in his mouth unnecessary.

Matt (01:44:07):

I’m like, I’m torn between three and three and a half because I think it’s a very, very likable comedy with a very likable cast. Its message is kind of nice.

Laci (01:44:16):

It’s nuanced.

Matt (01:44:18):

And this is a great, if you have your family and you need to not offend anybody, you have Grandma over. Everyone needs to watch a movie. This would be a winning movie to play for everybody.

Laci (01:44:29):

And do you know how few movies are on that list? Can hold your attention, can make you laugh more than once and Will please everyone. That’s really hard to do.

Matt (01:44:39):

Yeah.

Laci (01:44:40):

I think it deserves a three and a half at least, just because of that. Three

Matt (01:44:44):

And a half stars. Great. Jack Black, great. Karen Gillen and Solid Work from The Rock and Kevin Hart. And you made a movie. Good job. I can’t make a movie next week, Laci. The summer of Rock continues by us being off.

Laci (01:45:00):

Cool.

Matt (01:45:00):

We’re taking the week off then. Even

Laci (01:45:02):

The Rock takes a break every now and then.

Matt (01:45:04):

Oh, he is. Got to slow down sometimes. But we’re coming back the following week with Baywatch that notorious flop of his.

Laci (01:45:10):

I am excited.

Matt (01:45:11):

From 2017,

Laci (01:45:12):

I’ll be honest, I’ve yet to see a movie I didn’t really like. Right? Yeah. I don’t think there’s been a Pooper.

Matt (01:45:18):

No Poopers

Laci (01:45:19):

Tooth. I didn’t. Oh right. But there was, that

Matt (01:45:22):

Broke us,

Laci (01:45:23):

But it was so horrible. It made for good. You’re right. No, that was just fucking dog shit. And I didn’t love, love, love score being king. But that’s okay.

Matt (01:45:33):

This movie was very much trying to be like, Hey, you like 21 Jump Street. We’ll just do that again. But with Baywatch, right? And Caleb I think will be with us then, but we’ll see. And so look forward to that on the Patreon, patreon.com/load bearing beam. Sign up for $5 a month. You get bonus content, including my discussion, my review spoiler field of fantastic four first steps with screen time coda and neophyte reviews. Tell a friend about the podcast, please give us a review on Apple Podcast. It would change

Laci (01:46:02):

Our world. It’s actually important. Can you just fucking do it? Just one person do it and then tell me you did it and then I’ll send you $5. Just do it.

Matt (01:46:10):

You won’t do that. But just tell us. Just do it and tell us you did it. Subscribe on YouTube. Follow us on Letterboxd, MattStokes9 and LoadBearingLaci. And check out my band, please. We do the music for the show, including the song you’re hearing right now. The band is Rural Route Nine. The album is The Joy of Averages. You can get it wherever you get music.

Laci (01:46:25):

Okay. I love you. I smell you. Goodbye.

Matt (01:46:29):

I smell you. Goodbye. Ew.