The Rundown (2003)

It comes fast, a split-second cameo: Arnold Schwarzenegger walks out of a bar and yells, “Have fun!,” as Dwayne Johnson -– billed as “The Rock” for his wrestling -– struts into a showdown that will have him clobbering most of a football team. Off the bat, director Peter Berg in his second film is planting flags: Johnson is the new Action King and “The Rundown” is a goofy, bone-cruncher flick from 1986. And it is exactly that. Every beat, stunt, gag, and boom is wired to the days of Reagan. Irritation? Yes. Likely the point? Fact. Plot: Johnson is Beck, a bounty hunter sent to the Amazon to retrieve the son (Sean William Scott) of his loan shark boss. In the jungle, his target easily found, Beck gets sucked into a third-world slave camp (free market capitalism!) drama run by an evil baron (Christopher Walken). Skulls crack, you know the rest. Johnson’s charisma is strong as Berg dreams up cackling, chortling myriad ways to put his hero through the ringer. Scott’s Wile E. Coyote irritates and needles Beck in the film’s best unsaid gag: This is a bromance take on “Romancing the Stone,” one of those great ’80s films. B

Jumanji (1995)

I disliked “Jumanji” when I saw it in theaters. I cannot recall why: Too much newbie CGI, or just an irritation with Robin Williams running loony? But with this second viewing, I like its goofy innocence. 

The story: Orphans Judy (Kirsten Dunst) and Peter (Bradley Pierce) arrive in a New England town with their aunt (Bebe Neuwirth), a woman who can renovate an entire derelict mansion in one day. Sorry. That is not the plot. 

This is: The children find a centuries-old bored game called “Jumanji” in the attic, begin to play it, and out comes jungle beasts and bugs, and a bushy man (Robin Williams) who once was a boy in that same house, trapped in the game for decades. The rest of Joe Johnston’s film follows the trio -– Dunst, Pierce, and Williams -– keeping the board game’s animals, vines, and raging waters in control. 

It’s a playful film, not afraid to break the fourth wall, and let kids in on the joke of goofy fun. I cringed again at David Allan Grier’s policeman, all big eyes. It rubs wrong. I may have been wrong in 1995. B+