It was a very long time ago when Jack Whitehall excited tweeted oh god im in a film with the Rock. From that moment, i knew i wanted to see the film no matter what it was. It turned into Jungle Cruise which is based on a disney world theme park ride, so pirates of the Caribbean but reinvented right? So lets see if that hype about 3 years ago was worth it.

I was the only one there which is normally okay apart from the family that walked past me & said as they sat down in the row behind, how sad must your life be if you have to go to the cinema on your own. I felt a little put out by that. but hey they were a family of 5 at the cinema which would have cost them at least £30 plus snacks to see the film ( they had snacks by the way) where as if i now dont see a film for the rest of the year this film has cost me £7.50 so ha jokes on them its better to go as a one. Mainly groups of familys with teen kids in there but a few group of people my age & one older couple, who left the screening in front of me & went yea we can take the grandkids to see that for the pocket money films at the weekend (good scouting grand parents).

Trailers were for Sing 2 (prob a no depends when it comes out), Free Guy (is it time yet i really need this) GhostBusters (probably) & there was one more (quickly looks at Wikipedia) Letters to your lover which i must have forgotten as i already have that booked up. So interesting set.

& then the film started… It was corny predictable & easy to work out early on… however… i bloody loved every second of it.

It was one of those moments that as the credits started to roll i did genuinely sit there & go oh shit i am the target audience i really am, they have made this film for me & me alone & im going to be the only person in this room that got every single moment of it & adored it, arent i. & i thought about it since ive been home from watching the film on wednesday & i can now categorically say that yes i was the entire target audience.

The one they did get wrong is that snakes that leap out randomly every now & then. I dont do snakes, snakes & frogs are my no go but snakes leaping out of a screen are not for me. I mean okay you should jump at this kind of disney film but nah im still not liking Snakes they can piss off.

The Rock (i dont like calling him Dwayne {President Johnson would do tho}) is just so charismatic & is such a fun character to play. It was like he was a heel that had just turned face in the early 00s WWE. A role he nailed, you loved to hate him & hated to love him but you just always knew he was going to deliver & he did. He got some wrestling done, he showed his fun side, his charisma, his smooth looks (but no peoples eyebrow that i can remember) & he just bossed it.

Emily Blunt was amazing & added the professional aspect to the film. She was cool & determined & a proper modern woman in a backwards film which was nice to see. Properly amazing & really likeable. Arrogant but not enough to be annoying. Brilliant.

Jesse Plemons is starting to be one of those underrated actors who you notice ever now & then & just go oh okay its that guy again, & his villain is really good & clever. I mean you dont ever questions a submarine in the amazon do you, it just had to be there. HE was better than the main villains in it who were cool but we could have fleshed that out a bit more & added more of a background to them, we learn about them when we need to but id like a bit more. If it wasnt a disney film i think we may have got more. I mean they were still good & the effects on them were cool but they werent Jesse.

Some of the generated sights of the amazon on the green screen were amazing. I know they took pictures of the amazon & then enhanced them but it looked visually wonderful, especially the rapids & the McGuffin at the end. It was very special. The McGuffin actually was very nice & a beautiful way of having one. I mean we all knew what was going to happen with it but it was nice for it to be something so simple & useful for once.

So lets talk Jack Whitehall then. The man years ago my sister & i paid £10 to see live who now you have to pay £40 for restricted section. There had been a lot of complaints that he was going to be disneys first openly gay character & how dare it be a straight man. Well first of all its acting (are you complaining about Neil Patrick Harris in how i met your mother or Ian McKellen in beauty & the beast nope) so get over it. Second in beauty in the beast Le Fou has a moment when its implied. & third its reference without being referenced in the film & dealt by the character in the correct way. He doesnt stand there & shout hes gay because of his back story that he explains & the people who are there support him & deal with it in their own way, so dont you dare moan at Jack. Anyhow he was bloody brilliant. He got to do all sorts of random stuff & was mainly their for comic effect & to camp it up, but he made it a much more relatable story of just being like fuck this i aint doing that. Jack was wonderful.

The race to get onto the boat was good at the start i really enjoyed that. All of the action set pieces were put together really well too. IT just felt complete & that nothing was out of place. IT all hit its mark so well.

Yes you can work it out really quickly as to who is who & whats going on & why i get that, but i wanted to see how it was going to be resolved & as to why certain things were going on so when i got my answers i was like yes good for you for doing that. I was happy with most of the outcomes.

Music score was amazing. The Rock didnt sing or rap, but we got some dad jokes which was wonderful.

So its basically pirates of the Caribbean redone for the next generation. But i bloody love the pirate films (the first 3 lets not talk about 4 or 5) so i am very happy with this & to be there target audience. Your teenagers will love it & you will have a bloody good time too.

I left smiling from ear to ear & felt happy & complete & that i had watched a proper popcorn blockbuster summer film, & thats what i hoped i would get before i went in, so i cant complain at all. You’re welcome.