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    Nostalgia Central
    Home»Movies»Movies by Decade»Movies - 1990s
    Movies - 1990s Movies - J 3 Mins Read

    Jumanji (1995)

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    Jumanji is a children’s fantasy adventure film that consists mainly of horror, chaos and Robin Williams at his most unctuously endearing.

    The elaborate (though less than airtight) plot is centred on a Victorian board game with magical powers, called “Jumanji” (a name probably meant to suggest “Parcheesi” though it sounds more like a lost martial art).

    When 12-year-old Alan Parrish (Adam Hann-Byrd) opens an elegantly-carved wooden box, he’s startled by the way the carved ivory playing pieces jump automatically into position on the board. His best (and, in fact, only) friend, Sarah (Laura Bell-Bundy), rolls the dice and a flock of snapping, digitally engineered bats invades Alan’s luxurious home.

    After Alan takes his turn, a mysterious message appears on the game’s surface, banishing the boy to a sinister jungle land in another dimension until the next player in the game rolls a magic number.

    That doesn’t happen for another 26 years when another pair of lonely children – orphaned Judy (Kirsten Dunst) and Peter (Bradley Price) – move into the now run-down Parrish mansion and find the game hidden in the attic.

    Peter’s first roll liberates the now 38-year-old Alan (Robin Williams), who – dressed in a Robinson Crusoe outfit of palm leaves and tortoise shells – runs through the house calling plaintively for his long-deceased mother and father.

    Further rolls of the dice produce more eruptions of wildlife into the house – huge, poisonous mosquitos, a horde of blindly destructive monkeys, a roaring lion that takes up residence in the bedroom of the children’s guardian aunt (Bebe Neuwirth).

    Only when the game is completed will its effects be reversed, which means that Alan and the kids must recruit the severely traumatised, now-adult Sarah (Bonnie Hunt), who has become a quivering neurotic and – inexplicably – a professional fortune-teller.

    There’s very little humour to balance the many vividly realistic horrors produced by the game board, and – though the film is pumped up with moralistic sermons and psycho-babble of dubious value – its basic message seems to be that massive destruction is fun.

    A 40-episode TV cartoon series of the same name was produced in 1996, featuring Judy and Peter Shepherd (voiced by Debi Derryberry and Ashley Johnson) and Aunt Nora (Melanie Chartoff). She was a psychologist trying to raise the two kids, but whenever Jumanji craziness broke out of the board into the real world, Aunt Nora passed it off as a hallucination.

    Alan Parrish
    Robin Williams
    Van Pelt/Sam Parrish
    Jonathan Hyde
    Judy Shepherd
    Kirsten Dunst
    Peter Shepherd
    Bradley Pierce
    Sarah Whittle
    Bonnie Hunt
    Nora Shepherd
    Bebe Neuwirth
    Carl Bentley
    David Alan Grier
    Carol Parrish
    Patricia Clarkson
    Young Alan
    Adam Hann-Byrd
    Young Sarah
    Laura Bell-Bundy
    Exterminator
    James Handy
    Mrs Thomas
    Gillian Barber
    Benjamin
    Brandon Obray
    Caleb
    Cyrus Thiedeke
    Billy Jessup
    Gary Joseph Thorup

    Director
    Joe Johnston

    Video

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