Jumanji

Jumanji
Directed by	Joe Johnston
Written by	Chris Van Allsburg, Greg Taylor, Jonathan Hensleigh (screenplay)
Produced by	Robert W. Cort, Ted Field, Larry J. Franco
Starring	Robin Williams, Jonathan Hyde, Kirsten Dunst, Bonnie Hunt, Bradley Pierce, Bebe Neuwirth, David Alan Grier, Adam Hann-Byrd, Patricia Clarkson
Cinematography	Thomas Ackerman
Edited by	Robert Dalva
Music by	James Horner
Distributed by	TriStar Pictures
Release date	December 15 1995
Running time	104 minutes
Language	English
Budget	~$65,000,000

Jumanji is a 1995 feature film directed by Joe Johnston and based on Chris Van Allsburg's popular 1982 book, Jumanji. The story is about a magical and ominous board game which makes animals and other jungle hazards appear upon each roll of the dice. Expensive, state of the art computer graphics and animatronics were employed by Industrial Light and Magic for the special effects sequences.

The movie starred Robin Williams, Kirsten Dunst, Bradley Pierce, and Bonnie Hunt. It is dedicated to the memory of Stephen L. Price.

Plot

In 1969 a 12-year-old boy named Alan Parrish is then drawn to a strange sound of drumbeats outside his father's shoe factory, which lead him to a locked trunk containing a mysterious board game within, called Jumanji.

That night he and his friend Sarah Whittle play the Jumanji game. The instructions read: "Jumanji. A game for those who seek to find: a way to leave their world behind. You roll the dice to move your token, doubles get another turn. The first player to reach the end wins." The tokens move by themselves and writing appears in the black sphere in the game's centre. She reads the riddle ("At night they fly, you'd better run. These winged things are not much fun") and strange squeaking comes from the fireplace. On Alan's turn, the riddle reads: "In the jungle you must wait till the dice read five or eight". Before Sarah's eyes, Alan has disappeared, literally sucked into the game and she is chased out of the house screaming, scared out of her wits, by a flock of bats that flew out of the fireplace.

Twenty-six years later a pair of siblings, Judy and Peter (Kirsten Dunst and Bradley Pierce), move into the old Parrish estate. While moving their stuff in, Peter enters the attic and is frightened by a mysterious winged rodent. The two children start to hear familiar drumbeats from upstairs.

The following morning the two children are lured to the attic by the strange drum beats where they discover Jumanji. Curious about the game, they set it up and read the rules. Peter is about to place two tokens on the board when they unexpectedly leap from his hand and fuse themselves onto the game which Judy believes is caused by microchips in the game. Peter allows Judy to go first and she rolls a six. The two watch in amazement as her token moves by itself and orange writing appears in the center of the game. After she reads the riddle, ("A tiny bite can make you itch, make you sneeze, make you twitch") three giant mosquitoes fly in and Judy scares them off with a tennis racket. Peter rolls the dice, getting snake-eyes. After reading the riddle ("This will not be an easy mission, monkeys slow the expedition"), loud noises come from downstairs and they find a group of menacing monkeys in the kitchen, which later run out into the neighborhood. Then Judy spots another notice written on the side of the game board. Judy reads it aloud: "ADVENTURERS BEWARE. DO NOT BEGIN UNLESS YOU INTEND TO FINISH. FOR THE EXCITING CONSEQUENCES WILL ONLY VANISH WHEN A PLAYER HAS REACHED JUMANJI AND CALLS OUT ITS NAME." Judy reminds Peter that he rolled doubles, so he must roll again. Peter rolls a five, and a terrifying lion ("His fangs are sharp, he likes your taste. Your party better move, post haste") emerges from the shadows. It chases the two downstairs, where they are saved by a bearded man dressed in leaves who traps the lion in Aunt Nora's bedroom.

Finding the man in a locked room, it dawns on the children that he is Alan Parrish (now 38 years old - and played by Robin Williams). He runs out after learning his house has been abandoned for years. He runs out into the street and is nearly run over by a police car, driven by none other than Carl. Carl is puzzled by Alan's physique and behavior, making Judy come up with a story of him being her "vegetarian uncle". Carl then has to run off when monkeys hijack his car (a running gag later on is his car is slowly dismantled). Alan runs to his father's factory and learns from a homeless man that his father gave up on life when he believed his son had run away. Alan is directed by the man to the Parrish gravestone where he learns they died just four years before. Judy asks if Alan can help them finish the game, but he refuses. The trio then witness a car crash and they discover that the driver of the car was Mrs. Thomas, the estate agent, bitten by one of the giant mosquitoes. A pair of paramedics load her into the ambulance (which was the secondary crashed vehicle). Alan, Peter and Judy get into Mrs. Thomas' car and are attacked by another mosquito. Alan starts up the car and, in a comedic scene, drives the car back to his house.

Alan locks himself in the bathroom to sort himself out and he emerges with cut hair, no beard and dressed in new clothes. Alan wishes to start off with his life again. Peter accuses Alan of being afraid, but Alan speaks to him coldly about what things there are in the game. Alan agrees to watch them play the game. Later in the lounge, Judy cannot take her turn and Alan realizes he must play, but it is not his turn. It is the turn of Sarah Whittle!

They find Sarah (Bonnie Hunt) at her old house and she faints in shock when Alan reveals who he is. They take her back to the Parrish estate where they learn she has been in therapy for years, trying to get over her experience of Alan being sucked into Jumanji. Sarah is extremely frightened when she sees Jumanji and Alan tries to reassure her that nothing will go wrong. It is Sarah's turn, but she can't bear to do it. Alan offers her a hand to put the dice in so she can go home, but he turns his hand when she drops the dice, allowing the dice to fall onto the board as her roll. After the next riddle appears ("They grow much faster than bamboo. Take care, or they'll come after you"), the lounge is suddenly overgrown with vines and plants from the game. A giant yellow plant known as a "pod" rips its way through the fireplace and tries to eat Peter. Alan saves Peter using a sword on display above the mantle. Carl, meanwhile, finds his car crashed into a tree. He then heads off to arrest Alan.

Back at the house, Alan traps the plants in the lounge and guides a frightened Sarah into the library. Alan and Sarah have a heart-to-heart moment about how the game ruined their lives. The children announce they will not stop playing until the game is finished with Alan agreeing also. Sarah reluctantly agrees as well. It is Alan's first turn to roll in 26 years. He rolls, but leaps up in fright when he reads the inscription: "A hunter from the darkest wild, makes you feel just like a child".

A gun goes off and Van Pelt, a hunter armed with a rifle, appears and chases Alan out of the house (the hunter is played by Jonathan Hyde, the same actor who played Alan's father). Carl appears and tries to arrest Van Pelt, only to have his car shot at multiple times. Alan gets away and returns to the house, while Van Pelt runs out of ammunition and goes in search of a new supply of bullets. At the house, Sarah is told Alan didn't want to play and the two get into an argument. Alan also reveals Van Pelt wants to kill him because he finds everything offensive about him. The two get into a heated argument, but they stop when the ground shudders underneath them. Judy has rolled the dice and books start falling from the bookshelves. Alan turns and informs the others that a stampede is on its way (Judy rolled this clue: "Don't be fooled. It isn't thunder. Staying put would be a blunder"). Alan grabs the game and heads for the hills as a stampede of rhinoceros, elephants, zebras and pelicans charges through the house. One pelican lands and steals the game. The group give chase, oblivious that the plants are spreading further throughout — and out of — the house.

Van Pelt goes into a gun shop and is able to replace his elephant gun with a modern automatic rifle. Peter saves the game from the pelican when it accidentally drops it in a river. Carl finds the group soon after and arrests Alan. Realizing that Van Pelt is hidden somewhere nearby and looking for an opening to shoot him, Alan lets Carl drive him away from the others. After this, Judy and Sarah discover Peter has tried to cheat the game. He was only 10 spaces away, so he tried to drop the dice so they would land on 12, but he only got a six. As a punishment for cheating, the game transforms him into a wolf-like monkey (his clue was the cheating penalty: "A law of Jumanji has been broken. You will slip back even more than your token").

Alan reveals to Carl who he is, causing the police car to screech to a halt. Jumanji has also had several effects on the town. The mosquitoes have hospitalized nearly 100 people, the monkeys have hijacked several cars and caused storefront damage, and the stampede has plowed its way through town. All of this has led to widespread looting. Van Pelt steals Jumanji and Peter is nearly crushed by the raging stampede of animals. In a discount store, Van Pelt captures Sarah, but Peter and Judy save her and they run off with the game. Van Pelt chases them about in the shop. Carl releases Alan, but Alan handcuffs him to the car door to keep him away from the danger. After hearing of Sarah's predicament, Alan and Carl drive off to save her, Alan driving badly. Peter prepares a trap for Van Pelt in the shop using some dumbbells, a pair of scuba air bottles and a canoe. Peter slips Van Pelt up using washing-up liquid (dish soap). He activates his trap and Van Pelt (comically screaming in a high pitch) goes on a wild ride through the shop on the rocket-powered boat, flying through a wall. Van Pelt gets payback by burying the trio in a pile of tires.

Alan and Carl have broken the brakes on the car and smash their way through the shop, causing a stand of paint cans to collapse on Van Pelt. Alan sees Peter's current form and becomes unhappy.

Meanwhile, Aunt Nora is returning home in her car. She hears news of the mosquito bites' effects on people and sees the stampede go by. A monkey attacks her in her car, causing her to crash it. Alan scolds Peter, but he then apologizes when he sees the young child-monkey cry. Peter then explains he is not crying for being scolded, but because his tail is irritating him. Alan rips a hole in his trousers to allow the tail to have room to move. Carl sets off from the store to track down Alan. At the house, Alan and others discover that the plants in the lounge have freed themselves and have turned the house into a jungle. Carl finds Nora on the road, but before he can drive her home, a plant attacks and devours his car.

At the house, Sarah rolls (She needs twelve, but gets a 3) and creates a monsoon (Every month at the quarter moon, there will be a monsoon in your lagoon). Things take a turn for the worse when the lower areas of the house are flooded, and a crocodile attempts to eat the group. Sarah is nearly caught in the crocodile's jaws, forcing Alan to pounce and wrestle the crocodile to save her. Outside, Carl and Nora arrive, and Carl tries to kick the doors in, but all the water blasts out of the house and sweeps him and Nora away, taking the crocodile with them. When Allen helps Sarah down from the chandalier, she tries to kiss him for saving her, but he rebuffs her. The group go to finish the game in the attic. Alan rolls, but the riddle summons quicksand (Beware the ground on which you stand, the floor is quicker than the sand) and he begins quickly sinking into the floor. Thinking quickly, Judy rolls for her turn and is advised to go back one space (There is a lesson you will learn: sometimes you must go back a turn), freezing the floor and trapping Alan and Sarah. Peter rolls the dice and the group are surrounded by giant spiders (Need a hand? Why, you just wait. We'll help you out, we each have 8). Peter battles the spiders using an axe, but Judy collapses after being poisoned by a jungle plant.

Sarah rolls (she tries to get a seven, rolls an eight, so her piece doesn't move) using her mouth and an earthquake occurs (You're almost there with much at stake, but now the ground begins to quake). Alan gets free and finds the game, notices that he can finish if he rolls a three, but Van Pelt appears, covered in paint. He prepares to shoot Alan, tells him to stand up and to drop what he's holding (the dice), impressed that he is finally acting like a man. The first dice lands on the board, a one. Sarah appears to see the situation. The other die falls through a crack in the floor. Just as it's about to tumble over the edge, it stops, a two. When Van Pelt asks Alan for his last words, Alan notices he has dropped the dice and looks on in joy as his counter moves in the center of the game, and he cries out "JUMANJI!": Van Pelt fires and Sarah runs in front of Alan to save him, but the bullet is sucked away into the game and his gun is sucked back to the shop. Suddenly all of the animals fly in and form a giant tornado of colors as they, along with Van Pelt, are sucked into the game.

The game has ended, but Alan and Sarah are now children, back in 1969, with the knowledge what they did growing up. Judy and Peter aren't born yet. Alan and Samuel make up and Alan confesses to leaving the shoe in the shredder, but his father must dash off as he is the guest of honor at his meeting. Alan and Sarah decide to dump Jumanji in the nearby river, free of it at last. Sarah kisses Alan and the two walk off.

Twenty six years on, at the Parrish home, the two are now in their adult forms and are married with Sarah pregnant. They are celebrating Christmas with family and friends (including Carl). Alan is speaking to his dad on the phone, but he and Sarah have to dash off to meet some new friends: Jim (who has been hired by Alan and Sarah to work on the advertising for Parrish shoes) and Martha. The two are in fact Judy and Peter's parents. The two meet Judy and Peter (again) and offer them presents. Jim informs the two that they might be going on a skiing trip to Canada, but Alan and Sarah shout "NO!" in horror, knowing that they would die in the car crash there. The two say that they would think it would be best for Jim to start on his work as soon as possible and everyone agrees, which spares Judy and Peter's parents.

Meanwhile, on a beach somewhere, a pair of French speaking children walk and they hear some strange drums beating. Not far from them in the sand is the game.

Trivia

• Van Pelt and Alan's father are both portrayed by Jonathan Hyde, which is reminiscent of stage and screen adaptations of "Peter Pan", where the character of the father and Captain Hook are also traditionally played by the same actor, the relationship between the characters Alan-father-Van Pelt is also similar to that from "Peter Pan". Also, Robin Williams played a grown-up Peter in the movie "Hook" based on the "Peter Pan" novel.
• Filmed on a large sound stage in Vancouver, B.C. and in Maine and New Hampshire.
• The shots of the town were actually filmed in Keene, New Hampshire, a southern New Hampshire town not far from the Massachusetts or Vermont borders.
• David Alan Grier, who plays Carl, and Bonnie Hunt, who played Sarah, went on to later star in Bonnie Hunt's film Return to Me and her ABC sitcom, Life With Bonnie.

Spin-offs

• There was an animated series based on the movie that ran from 1996-1999. In 1996 it was carried by the UPN network, but later seasons were syndicated by BKN. While it followed the movie's plot, there were a few changes such as the exclusion of Bonnie Hunt's character, and the age and relationship of the David Alan Grier character was changed somewhat. Each turn the player was given a "game clue" and then sucked into the jungle until they solved their clue. Robin Williams's character had missed his clue and was continually searching for it in order to escape the board game.
• Milton Bradley released a board game that was equipped with not only the game clues from the movie, but also some new ones.
• Zathura (see Zathura (film)) was a sequel that was loosely based on a book of the same name.

Box office

US Gross Domestic Takings: US$ 100,475,249
Other International Takings: $162,322,000
Gross Worldwide Takings: $262,797,249

See also

• Zathura (film)
• Jumanji, the book this film was loosely based on.

External links

• Jumanji at IMDb
• Jumanji at Box Office Mojo