The Final Level: Escaping Rancala

The moment one realizes this is an Asylum film, all expectations pretty much leave the building, screaming. And rightly so.

The acting wasn't bad, considering the poor script and bad directing. I mean, actors can only do so much with 3rd grade play dialog.

General summary: idea straight from Jumanji. Worst. boss. fights. ever. (These "bosses" could pretty much be beat with a small pointy stick... or maybe giving them a wedgie.) The girls did as good a job as they could given the ridiculously slow-moving script, amateur dialog (however, not the worst we've seen from Asylum) and yawner situations. Seriously, halfway through the viewers want to enter the game ourselves with a baseball bat and take out all the adversaries in about... oh 5 minutes or so. It's. that. bad.

Not the worst Asylum film I've seen, which is why I give it 2 stars instead of 1. Favorite line of the movie: "You think this game was designed by guys?" Yeah, pretty sure the movie was too.

The really sad thing here is that even with Asylum's limited resources, they could have come up with better boss fights than presented here. One felt like shouting, "Just kick him in the tenders and get on with it!" So we have to wonder why someone in the effects team didn't put in just a little more effort and make it a lot more interesting. It really wouldn't have been more expensive or more difficult to put some of the special effects we've seen in other asylum films into this one. They started out well enough with the sharknado... and then it just stops.

If one goes in expecting yet-another-Asylum-film... that's exactly what you'll get. The three actresses are a bit more talented than usual, but that's about all that can be said for this. It's not exactly a train wreck, but the train comes to a very slow, limping halt about a mile short of the station.

The only reason I wanted to watch this is because Bai Ling was in it. And she is, like five minutes. The rest is a really low budget Jumanji rip off, with three hapless girls stuck in an arcade game. The acting was awful, the production values ridiculous. This is one of those movies that you need to be drunk to watch and maybe it will be funny.

"The Final Level: Escaping Rancala" tells the story of 3 beauties who get into a computer game (exactly like in the 2 recent 'Jumanji' reboots) where they have to survive against several enemies in 5 different levels. Their aim is to free a friend/brother who was locked inside the game. In order to achieve this, they also have to fight the self-proclaimed "King" of the game.

I don't hold it against the movie that it looks cheap with ridiculous effects, for example the sharks and the fights with a purple comic book 'flash' for each hit. But if a movie is produced with very little money, it should have at least a few funny ideas to become a decent spoof of the original. Ideas are however totally absent here. I give it three stars, one for each of the ladies bravely wrestling with the non-existing script and non-existing digital opponents. I got the movie for free on TV, and now I know why.

Well, with this being a movie by The Asylum, you pretty much know what you are getting yourself into here before you start watching the movie. Still, I opted to sit down to watch the 2019 movie "The Final Level: Escaping Rancala" for two reasons; first of all, the movie had Bai Ling headlined on the cover, and also because there is an odd chance that The Asylum actually does put something worthwhile out every now and again.

"The Final Level: Escaping Rancala" failed on both levels - pardon the pun. Bai Ling was hardly in the movie for even five minutes, but of course she was the most famous person in the movie, so of course The Asylum headlined her on the cover. And then secondly, this movie wasn't particularly great.

The storyline told in "The Final Level: Escaping Rancala" felt like a watered down version of "Jumanji" with a pinch of "Mortal Kombat" or "Street Fighter" to it. Not really a great combo. And it worked out even less well given the fact that the storyline was just downright laughable.

The acting in the movie wasn't actually as bad as you might think for a movie such as this. With that being said, you will not find yourself in for a grand Shakespearian experience either with the performances found in the movie.

The CGI effects in the movie were questionable. Some of them was passable, while others just screamed 1990s computer game.

And the fight scenes were just wonderfully scripted and equally wonderfully choreographed, lacking a fluidity to it and a natural movement between the participants. Spice that up with flashes of lights and strange arcade punching sounds whenever someone was kicked or punched, then you know what you are in for here.

"The Final Level: Escaping Rancala" was watchable, but hardly all that entertaining. I managed to endure the entire movie, but this is not a movie that I will return to watch a second time, ever.

My rating of the 2019 movie lands on a mere three out of ten stars.

The cover shows a volcano (which is not in the movie) with Pteranodons (which are not in the movie) while the lead character hides from a T Rex. On the rear cover there are 2 t rexes ( only one of which is in the movie) and a velociraptor (which is not in the movie).

In fact the total dinosaurs in Jurassic Island is 1.

This lone T Rex appears for about 3 minutes on level 2.

What this is, is a badly written, excruciatingly badly acted and awfully paced Jumanji rip off. If it was still called The Final Level: Escaping Rancala rather than renamed as Jurassic Island I might have forgiven the blatant false advertising and misrepresentation of the cover but as it stands I feel that I have been utterly ripped off. No spoilers it's utter CRA......