Movie Review: ‘Bop It!’: Sensory Overload
by Madeleine de Vise, Contributor
Illustration by Frances McDowell, Layout Assistant
Reader, if you loved the Jumanji movies as a kid, I do not recommend seeing the spin-off that hit theaters last weekend. Bop-It!: Sensory Overload is the first film of the Jumanji franchise to debut specifically as a 4D experience. It’s also Hollywood’s latest in a race to the bottom to adapt video games to the big screen. I admit that I entered the theater with biases — trailers promised the reheated leftovers of a bygone generation with a side of Gen Z “algospeak” — but nothing could have prepared me for the base, invasive, and utterly degrading events of the Bop-It! 4D experience.
First, they strap you into a chair so horrific that I yearned for the old Apollo seats like a mean ex-girlfriend. If you’ve ever ridden a serious roller coaster, it’s a bit like that. Before the movie begins, the staff come around and rattle your cage to make sure it’s locked tight. Then — at this point I realized my popcorn would go to waste — they strap your wrists, ankles, ears, and ponytail with elastic bands that connect to a device inside of the chair. The effect of these straps is that any time a main character was told to “pull it,” these parts of our bodies were pulled — no, yanked. I wanted to injure the child behind me who screamed “YAGA!” every time.
The “bop it!” command amounted to a punch in the stomach, by far my preferred punishment. Even though I was swallowing hot acid burps, at least the sensation was familiar. While “flick it!” conjured pangs of nipple sympathy, I was somewhat relieved that the act amounted to a hammer between the eyes whose repeated application has permanently changed my personality. I don’t want to talk about “twist it!”.
Consider the fact that this film is marketed to children. Those little elastic twerps probably enjoyed it, but most of them were too young to go unaccompanied. The parents that stumbled out of the theater were sallow and sheened with sweat, eyes dead in their sockets, shivering. We could barely look at each other. Even though we’d been isolated back there, we knew what we had all endured. None of us wanted to imagine it happening to someone else; none of us wanted to see another victim looking back at us, to know that it had really happened.
When I bought my ticket on the Apollo’s website, I also signed a Release of Liability that I didn’t read. Upon further investigation, I now know that 4D experiences may not be suitable for persons under the influence of alcohol or other intoxicants. I contend that there was no chance of comfort or joy, even in a universe that didn’t see me huffing in the bathroom pre-show.
Now, I wouldn’t call the movie a total wash. The kids I overheard in the theater were laughing, if not at the parts that were meant to be funny — I think those mostly bored them — then at least when Jack Black’s aging body is horrifically mangled into the shape of a Bop It! Why was this part so funny to them? It would take too long to explain, but suffice it to say that an insider told me it’s trending on TikTok.
