Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle exceeded my expectations

I walked into the theater expecting to have a decent time watching this movie, to cringe a great deal, and to emerge having enjoyed some fluffy entertainment.

Instead, I genuinely enjoyed the movie, I never cringed, and at the end I found it rather touching.  A lot of my positive feelings came from the fact that the lead actors turned in strong performances, with Dwayne Johnson doing a surprisingly good job of playing the teen nerd trapped in his body.  In addition, though the action scenes were fine and about what I had thought they would be, across the board the character-building scenes were better than I had expected. 

Both a fun ride and a movie with heart, this Jumanji is worth your time.