When “Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle” came out a couple of years ago, I was as surprised as anyone when it turned out to actually be pretty good. Who’d have thought a two-decades-later sort-of-sequel to a mid-90s kids movie would turn out to be both entertaining and WILDLY lucrative?

Well, having the Rock doesn’t hurt.

After that film did just shy of a billion dollars at the global box office, it was obviously going to get a sequel of its own. That sequel has arrived, as “Jumanji: The Next Level” has hit theaters.

And guess what? This one’s pretty good too. Not as good as the last one, perhaps, but solid. One assumes it will also make hundreds of millions of dollars.

Love him or hate him, you know pretty much what you’re getting with Kevin Hart. His movies are built on a foundation of fast-talking shtick as he inevitably plays someone thrust into circumstances beyond his control due to his past failings.

The problem is that the shtick – never particularly robust to begin with – is definitely wearing thin.

So we have “Night School,” a largely unfunny lowbrow comedy that proves unable to come up with more than a handful of decent jokes despite sporting a frankly-unbelievable six credited screenwriters. Not even the presence of Tiffany Haddish and a not-at-all-bad supporting ensemble is enough to make this movie clear what is a decidedly low bar.

One of the realities of Hollywood’s love of sequels, remakes and reboots is that you’re guaranteed a fairly wide range of quality, though history shows that you’re much more likely to get a dud than a diamond. The most effective projects seem to be the ones that can manage to update a property while still retaining the aspects that made them successful in the first place.

That said, be honest – you’ve probably never spoken aloud (or even thought) the sentence “I sure would like to see an updated reboot of the 1995 family film ‘Jumanji’ – preferably starring The Rock.”

And yet that’s what we’ve gotten with “Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle.” It probably seems odd to be getting a movie like this some two decades after the original, but that’s not even the biggest surprise about the whole thing. The biggest surprise?

It’s actually pretty good.

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It's relatively easy to make a passable action comedy. Just string together a handful of jokes with some decently-crafted action sequences into something vaguely resembling a plot, then toss a few recognizable faces into the mix. Boom a serviceable and (probably) not-terrible action comedy.

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