Jumanji
Dir: Joe Johnston
1995
***
I was in
my late teens when Jumanji came out, so while I think I was probably too old
for it at the time, I was probably in the intended catchment age group. I had
very little interest in it however, due to various different reasons and I only
caught up with it some years later. I had never read Chris Van Allsburg’s
children’s book either and after reading it to my nephew and niece quite
recently, I find the 1995 movie even less appealing. Before watching it I
thought it looked like a film that tried to hard to immolate the effects seen
in Jurassic Park that was released two years earlier. After watching it I
thought the same and also thought it tried far too hard to be a
Steven Spielberg movie. In all honesty, I felt it to be a poor
man’s Spielberg movie. I’m puzzled as to why it is now considered a
classic among adults in their late twenties and early thirties. That all said,
I certainly didn’t hate the film, far from it. It’s all good fun and the great
Robin Williams made it sparkle. Jonathan Hyde, Bonnie Hunt and Bebe Neuwirth played great
supporting characters and the young Kirsten Dunst and Bradley
Pierce were far less annoying than most child actors of the time. The film begins in
1869, near Brantford, New Hampshire, where we see two brothers
bury a chest and hope that no one will ever find it. This will no doubt be
returned to in one of the sequels – mark my words. A whole century
later in 1969, a young Alan Parrish escapes a gang of bullies led by Billy
Jessup and retreats to a shoe factory owned by his father, Sam. He meets Carl
Bentley, an employee, who reveals a new shoe prototype he made by himself. Alan
misplaces the shoe and damages a machine, but Carl takes responsibility and
loses his job. After being attacked by Jessup's group, who also steal his
bicycle, Alan follows the sound of tribal drumbeats to a construction site. He
finds the chest containing a board game called
"Jumanji" and brings it home. At home, after an argument with his
father about attending a boarding school,
Alan plans to run away. Sarah Whittle, his friend, arrives to return his
bicycle, and Alan shows her Jumanji and invites her to play. With each roll of
the dice, the game piece moves by itself and a cryptic message describing the
roll's outcome appears in the crystal ball at
the center of the board. Sarah reads the first message on the board and hears
an eerie sound. Alan then unintentionally rolls the dice after being startled
by the chiming clock; a message tells him to wait in a jungle until someone
rolls a 5 or 8. Alan is sucked into the game, and a colony of bats chases Sarah out of the mansion. Fast-forward a
further twenty-six years later to 1995, and we find siblings Judy and Peter
Shepherd move into the vacant Parrish mansion with their aunt Nora, after their
parents die in an accident on a ski trip in Canada, the winter before. Soon
after, Judy and Peter find Jumanji in the attic and begin playing it. Their
rolls release a swarm of big mosquitoes and
a troop of monkeys. The game rules
state that everything will be restored when the game ends, so they continue
playing. Peter's next roll releases a lion and
an adult Alan. As Alan makes his way out, he meets Carl, who is now working as
a police officer. Alan, Judy and Peter go to the now closed shoe factory, where
a derelict tells Alan that after his disappearance, his father abandoned the
business and searched for Alan, until his death just four years earlier.
Realizing they need Sarah to finish the game, the three locate her, now
suffering post-traumatic stress disorder after Alan's disappearance, and they persuade her
to join them. Sarah's roll releases fast-growing carnivorous plants, and Alan's next roll releases a big-game
hunter called Van Pelt. Judy's next roll
releases a stampede of various animals, and a pelican steals the game. Peter retrieves it, but Alan is
arrested by Carl. Later, Van Pelt catches up to Alan's friends and steals the
game. Peter, Sarah, and Judy follow Van Pelt to a department store, where they fight him, retrieve the game, and reunite
with Alan. When the four return to the mansion, it is now completely overrun by
jungle wildlife. They release numerous calamities, until Van Pelt arrives. When
Alan drops the dice, he wins the game, causing everything that had happened as
a result of the game to be reversed. Alan and Sarah return to 1969 as children,
but have full memories of the future events. Alan reconciles with his father
and admits that he was responsible for the shoe that damaged the factory's
machine. Carl is rehired, and Sam tells his son that he does not have to attend
boarding school. Alan and Sarah throw Jumanji into a river and then share a
kiss. Twenty-six years later, Alan and Sarah are married and expecting their
first child. Alan runs the factory after his parents retired (but are still
alive). He and Sarah reunite with Judy and Peter (who have no memories of the
game), and meet their parents Jim and Martha during a Christmas party. The
Parrishes offer Jim a job and convinces the Shepherds to cancel their upcoming
ski trip, averting their deaths, before they strike up a friendship with them.
It’s far from the original children’s story – which was sweet and simple but
there is a magic about the new ending. Just before the end credits we see two
French girls on a beach. They both begin to hear drumbeats as Jumanji lies
partially buried in the sand. The girls were ignored in
the sequel but I’m sure it won’t be the last we’ll see of them, such
is the Hollywood franchise machine. Like I said, I really liked the original
book and there is far too much sugar-coating to the 95 film – but – it’s a
little too fluffy to resist. It’s not a classic but there is a bit of magic
about it. Kids today probably don’t see the magic in 1980s films that I see –
it’s a nostalgia thing. I like Jumanji but it evokes nothing
for me in terms of nostalgia or fond memories, only that I miss Robin
Williams.
