Product: Jumanji [VHS] (1995)
Rating: 2.0
Weird
Chris Van Allsburg's picture book "Jumanji" was a beautiful but very odd and erie story for older children and adults. I can say the same thing for this movie version, though I think it hardly holds up as well in film form. First off, parents take note: this is a sad and scary film. A boy gets sucked into a board game about the jungle and, unlike Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, is never able to return home. When some other children conjure him out of the game thirty years later, he is physically grown (played by Robin Williams), used to living rather like a savage, and bewildered and saddened that the world has moved on and he has lost his family and his entire youth. Really, this is scary stuff if your child is at all insecure. Furthermore, the game unleashes on the modern world a group of ferocious and destructive animals. The effects are good, and older viewers might enjoy seeing the animals smash up a town. There are a few laughs in this too, but as I say, this is really sort of a younger version of "Jurassic Park," and not appropriate for kids younger than 8. The plot is really pretty haphazard here, and I give it a thumbs down.