MIKE WARD’S SMALL SCREEN
JUMANJI: WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE (12) GIVEN detention and ordered to clear out their school basement, four teens stumble upon a dusty old Nintendo-style console – and, as curiosity inevitably gets the better of them, they find they’ve been sucked into a perilous jungle-based video game.
What follows, at least from our perspective, is two hours of top entertainment, not least because each character gets transformed into a digital avatar (played by Dwayne Johnson, Karen Gillan, Kevin Hart and Jack Black) that’s a world apart from who they are in real life.
It’s less fun, mind, for the four themselves, as their multiple video-game lives then allow them to be repeatedly bumped off in a variety of hilariously unfortunate ways.
THE WEEK OF… (15) (Available now, Netflix) NETFLIX’S latest original movie stars Adam Sandler and Chris Rock as a pair of dads whose kids are about to marry.
And Sandler’s character, although the less well off, is determined to prove his devotion to his daughter by footing the bill. As the big day approaches, these dads and their families are then forced together in circumstances that will prove challenging to say the least.
As lightweight, rather predictable calamitydriven comedies go, there are worse ways to while away a couple of hours.
THE PARKINSONS: A LONG WALK TO NOWHERE (18)
(DVD from Monday) THREE-quarters Portuguese, one-quarter Scottish, punk outfit The Parkinsons got together in 2000 and wreaked sheer havoc, which is encapsulated here in a no-holds-barred documentary. THE GOOD KARMA HOSPITAL: SERIES TWO (15) (DVD)
AMANDA Redman, Amrita Acharia and Neil Morrissey return with another generous dollop of this Sunday night ITV medical drama, set on the shores of south India. There’s also a box set, with this and series one. THE SHANNARA CHRONICLES: SEASON TWO (15)
(DVD and Blu-ray from Monday)
AS sinister bunch The Crimson unleash their evil, can the Four Lands be saved? We’d better hope so, eh? Or whatever.