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.