They are unable to access one of the five-player options, a pilot, but once all four others have been selected, the game draws them all inside it. For detention, they are charged by Principal Bentley ( Marc Evan Jackson) with removing the staples from discarded magazines in an old storage area, but Spencer discovers the console containing the Jumanji game and convinces the others to play it with him. They are joined by Bethany Walker ( Madison Iseman), a beautiful girl who was caught talking on her phone during a quiz, and Martha Kaply ( Morgan Turner), a socially awkward girl who objected to being made to participate in gym class.
Twenty years later, high school student Spencer Gilpin ( Alex Wolff) is sent to detention for helping his former best friend, Anthony 'Fridge' Johnson ( Ser'Darius Blain), with his homework by writing Fridge's essays for him.
Overnight, the game changes so that the box's contents are now a video game cartridge, but when Alex puts it in his console and turns it on, he vanishes. In 1996, teenager Alex Vreeke ( Mason Guccione) receives the original (and cursed) Jumanji board game after his father finds it while jogging on a beach, but puts it aside, dismissively noting that nobody plays board games anymore, instead playing a video game involving motorcycles.
