Product: Jumanji [VHS] (1995)
Rating: 4.0
This is Horror and Not Fantasy Comedy
During one of my late nights I watched Jumanji again. This is a film starring Robin Williams and is based on a children's book (if by based one can mean it shares the title and a few illustrations). The film was released as a special effects extravaganza but failed to live up to the advertising.Jumanji is a mysterious board game. Once you start to play you have to end the game. Each roll of the dice unleashes some new nasty obstacle that must be overcome. This can be giant mosquitos and spiders, monkeys and lions, earthquakes, stampedes, quicksand and carnivorous vines, or something even nastier. When Robin Williams was a young boy he found the game buried at a construction site. The opening moves resulted in Williams being banished to the game until someone rolls a five or an eight. Unfortunately no one believes the young girl who had been playing the game with him.The scene jumps ahead twenty-six years to the present and the new residents of the house find the old game and begin to play. Williams is returned, now twenty-six years older and very jungle-wise. The first things out of the game were destructive enough that the kids decide to finish the game so that everything will be back to normal. Unfortunately the game thinks there are now four players. Williams must find his childhood friend and convince her to continue the game.As more and more destructive forces are released we learn that Williams's disappearance caused the town to go into a tailspin. The new horrors just speed up the decay. The four players face frustrating and deadly things as they finally finish the game. In the end all is returned to normal. The normal of when the game was started twenty-six years previously. Williams is now a kid again. The scene jumps to the present again and the town is prosperous while Williams tracks down the kids he finished the game with.This is a very intense film and was probably not suited for the young target audience. This was marketed as a fun fantasy cor children, but what this film is in fact is juvenile horror. Not bad horror, but horror aimed at kids. Taken in that light it is a very well done film with tense moments, humor and subtleties and is worth checking out. But if you are looking for a fun-filled farce you would do better to look elsewhere.