Jumanji

Movie Review: “Jumanji” (1995 - English)

Director: Joe Johnston

Writers: Jonathan Hensleigh, Greg Taylor

Genre: Adventure, Comedy, Family, Fantasy, Thriller

Cast: Robin Williams, Jonathan Hyde, Kirsten Dunst, Bradley Pierce, Bonnie Hunt, Bebe Neuwirth, David Alan Grier and Others.

“Jumanji” is a name of a Board game which is at the centre of the film so the movie is called by its name “Jumanji”. The movie is based on a picture book story of the same name written by Chris Van Allsberg. Movie will easily rank in top 20 entertaining movie I watched ever in my life so far. It has everything contents of Adventure and Action, bit of Comedy, Fantasy, Thriller, lot of Special Effects. But most of all it will be classified a movie for children. But I enjoy the movie every time I watch it although I am all grown up now.

Movie start with two kids burying the “Jumanji”(a board game) in ancient time. Then movie skips forward when Alan digs out the game outside his father’s shoe factory. And he decides to try his hand with his friend Sarah. And after that as the tagline of the movie says “Roll the dice and unleash the excitement”. That’s what we get, as Sarah rolls the dice thousands of Bats flies out of the game. And if that wasn’t scary enough when Alan rolls the dice, he gets sucked in the game itself. And he has to be there for next twenty six years of his life. Sarah needs treatment for her insanity.

The story again skips forward by twenty six year when two kids Judy (Kirsten Dunst) and Peter come to live in Alan’s home with their aunt. They also found out that the game is calling for them, when they get to the game they also decide to try their hands on the game. And they also discover the fun of the game when Judy rolls the dice Mosquitoes attack them, next roll some crazy monkeys come out of the game, next roll the lion comes out and when they roll again Alan himself comes out of the game. But this time he is all grown up. But real action starts when Alan and kids realized that they are playing the same game which Alan started twenty six earlier. And if they want to undo everything done by the game they had to finish the game. So they need all the four participants including Sarah. They make Sarah to participate in the game once again. After that movie gets even more adventures because as they roll the dice they encounter even more scary things like a Hunter with big gun, wild man eating trees, Animal stampede, big deadly spiders, crocodiles and crazy jungle monsoon.

So story takes you to the end how they manage to overcome every obstacle and manage to finish the game. And eventually able to undo all the disaster created by the game.

After watching the movie the person who should be admired is Director of the movie Joe Johnson. Because in Special effect movies like this it is very easy to overdo the special effect to make it more glamorous. But in the process story might lost which didn’t happen with “Jumanji”. The special effects may be at par with the time when the movie released but we can see movies are coming out with better special effect. In the movies like Jurassic Park, Twister, Godzilla, Narnia. But I really enjoyed the sequence of stampede and the cute hippo lagging behind them. On the whole all the actors did brilliant job. Movie will surely be enlisted in my Must watch movies before you die.

If I have to rate the movie I will give 9 out of 10 for this pure entertainment movie.

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