When you think of the book Jumanji by Chris Vans Allsburg, you would probably think of a fun jungle adventure, unlike anything you’ve ever seen before. When I think of the movie that would come out in 1995, I think of the same things as the book plus with some unexpected trauma and darkness that I would have never expected a movie based on a simple children’s book would ever give audiences. This in no way makes this movie bad but it does make it very interesting. This is a movie that does entertain even if it may have many shortcomings.
In 1969, a young Alan Parrish and his friend Sarah Whittle are playing a board game Alan found on a construction site called Jumanji when suddenly a role of the dice leads to Alan being sucked into the game leaving a horrified Sarah to run away in disbelief. Twenty-Six years pass and a new family moves into a house including an Aunt named Nora and her two cousins Judy (Kirsten Dunst) and Peter (Bradley Pierce) who discover the game in the attic and secretly stay home from school to play it. Soon they discover that the actions of what happened in the game start to come true as jungle animals appear and the house begins to turn into a jungle itself. The game also releases a fully grown Alan Parrish (Robin Willams) who says they will need the help of his friend Sarah (Bonnie Hunt) in order to finish the game entirely. With every roll of the dice however, a new threat awaits them at every turn.
If you’re expecting a happy-go-lucky story then you are gonna be in for a shock because this movie has some very dark undertones that managed to catch me off guard. This movie was directed by Joe Johnston who previously directed “Honey I Shrunk the Kids” which is another movie that also has a lot of dark and thrilling scenes but still remembers that it is a family movie. Of course, The dark stuff is not gonna be gory or violent but there are still a lot of intense and even saddening moments that feel uncomfortable but also intriguing. It's actually quite surprising that a movie mainly aimed at children got away with certain twisted moments, but I guess that just makes the movie all the more of a standout. Luckily there are enough adventurous and fun moments that balance out the more dark stuff. I actually do like that, unlike Zathura where the game’s consequences only happen to the house and the characters trapped in it, the Jumanji game’s consequences affect the town our main characters live in. while I would have preferred this movie to be a little closer in tone to the original picture book source material, this is a movie that knows how to catch your attention and keep your interest.
The characters are a bit of a mixed bag, but none of them are terrible and they each do their very best to give decent enough performances to execute this one heck of an experience. The late Robin Williams as Alan Parrish is no doubt the best actor in the entire movie seeing how very talented he was to play any kind of actor that makes use of his adlibbing talents. It may not be his most iconic role, but Williams does pull off a great performance even if the writing does limit his character growth in some aspects. Bonnie Hunt as Sarah is honestly okay, I love Bonnie Hunt, but I felt her character was a little underused, and his arguments with Willams’s character Alan does overstay their welcome from time to time. The kids Judy and Peter are played by a young Kirsten Dunst who would go on to play Mary Jane in the Sam Rami Spider-Man trilogy and a young Bradley Pierce who is best known for voicing Chip in the animated Beauty and the Beast. The kids are honestly okay as they don’t have many defined personalities and flaws compared to the brothers in Zathura. While I give the filmmakers credit that they aren’t bland, they are unfortunately not really that memorable. These are fine characters but they could be great if some of them got more interesting character arcs.
The visuals can range from being decently impressive to unfortunatly dated. The more dated bits often revolve around the CGI effects which granted were made when CGI was in its beginning stages but by today's standards, they look unconvincing and rather flat at times. Some examples include seeing the animals that are made to fill in the background running all over town which is fine, but the effects team didn’t do enough really make the CGI effects feel like part of the actually filmed cinematography compared to something like the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park that came out two years prior to this movie. Still, I will give credit that there are still plenty of practical effects like using some real animals like lions and creating a jungle-like scenery when the Jumanji board game takes over the house the characters play the game in. I would have preferred both the CGI and the practical effects to work with each other to create one grand illusion, but the visuals do just enough of a good job to get by without having to beg for something more.
The music score is composed by James Horner who did many scores for movies like Titanic and Avatar for James Cameron and Honey I Shrunk the Kids which he did for Joe Johnston beforehand. The music takes the tunes you hear when you think of a jungle and combines them with typical epic movie orchestrations. One of the best additions is when the drums start beating dramatically when any of the characters come in contact with the Jumanji game board which is a very nice touch.
I personally believe that movies like Zathura and Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle did a better job at handling the concept of characters trapped in a game that they must play to get out of, but that doesn’t make the original Jumanji movie any less bad because if anything this is possibly the most shocking and even subtly unknowingly depressing family movies that had no right to be this very interesting. While I do have problems with its dated CGI effects and some of the story elements, Jumanji is a decent movie that has just enough fun and excitement to compensate even if it does make me prefer the read the actual book which holds up a lot better.
(Final Grade: B-)