Jumanji

This article is about the film. For the book, see Jumanji (short story). For the TV show, see Jumanji (TV series).

Jumanji
North American release poster
Directed by	Joe Johnston
Produced by	Robert W. Cort Ted Field
Screenplay by	Greg Taylor Jonathan Hensleigh Jim Strain
Based on	Jumanji  by Chris Van Allsburg
Starring	Robin Williams Kirsten Dunst David Alan Grier Bonnie Hunt Jonathan Hyde Bebe Neuwirth
Music by	James Horner
Cinematography	Thomas Ackerman
Editing by	Robert Dalva
Studio	Interscope Communications Teitler Film
Distributed by	TriStar Pictures
Release date(s)	December 15, 1995 (1995-12-15)
Running time	104 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$65 million
Box office	$262,797,249

Jumanji is a 1995 American fantasy adventure film about a supernatural board game that makes wild animals and other jungle hazards materialize upon each player's move. It was directed by Joe Johnston and is based on Chris Van Allsburg's popular 1981 picture book of the same name. The special effects were provided by Industrial Light & Magic in computer graphics, and Amalgamated Dynamics with animatronics.

The film stars Robin Williams as Alan, a man who emerges from the game's unseen jungle world, along with Kirsten Dunst as a girl named Judy Shepherd who plays the game with her brother, Peter Shepherd (Bradley Pierce), David Alan Grier as a hapless shoemaker-turned-police officer, Adam Hann-Byrd as Alan when he was a boy, Bonnie Hunt as the woman who played the game with Alan when they were children, and Jonathan Hyde in a dual role as both Alan's father and Van Pelt, a big-game hunter intent on killing Alan—Van Pelt is patterned after Alan's father. The cast also features Bebe Neuwirth as Judy and Peter's aunt. It was shot in Keene, New Hampshire, where the story is set, North Berwick, Maine (the Parrish Shoes factory) and Vancouver, British Columbia. In 2005, a spiritual sequel to Jumanji, Zathura, was released.

Plot

In 1869, two boys bury a chest in a forest near Keene, New Hampshire. A century later, 12-year-old Alan Parrish flees from a group of bullies to a shoe factory owned by his father, Sam, where he meets his friend Carl Bentley, one of Sam's employees. When Alan accidentally damages a machine with a prototype sneaker Carl hopes to present, Carl takes the blame and loses his job. Outside the factory, after the bullies beat Alan up and steal his bicycle, Alan follows the sound of tribal drumbeats to a construction site and finds the chest, containing a board game called Jumanji.

Alan takes the game home and attempts to run away after having an argument with his father about attending a boarding school. However, his friend Sarah Whittle gives his bike back. The two begin playing Jumanji, which acts strangely: When a player rolls the dice, the player's piece moves itself and a message appears on the board. When Alan makes his first move, he is sucked into the game. Although the message states that he will be freed when a five or an eight is rolled, Sarah quits the game after being attacked by bats.

Twenty-six years later, Judy and Peter Shepherd move into the Parrish house with their aunt Nora after losing their parents in a skiing accident. Judy and Peter hear Jumanji's drumbeats and play the game in the attic, and as a result, giant mosquitoes attack them, and reddish-orange monkeys destroy their kitchen. Realizing that everything will be restored when the game ends, they continue the game despite the danger. Peter rolls a five, releasing both a lion and Alan, who is now an adult. Alan locks the lion in a bedroom, then goes to the now closed shoe factory. On the way, he meets Carl, working as a police officer, and discovers that the town's economy was devastated by the factory's closure. In the factory, a homeless man reveals that Sam abandoned the business to search for his son until his death in 1991. After Sam's death, his wife and Alan's mother Carol-Anne continued the search until her own death.

Alan joins the game with Judy and Peter, but when rolling the dice has no effect on the board, Alan realizes they are continuing the same game that he and Sarah started years ago. Finding Sarah, now a psychic who had gone insane after Alan's disappearance, Alan tricks her into rejoining the game and the following moves release fast-growing vines and a giant deadly man-eating "pod". After dealing with the pod and vines, Alan rolls and a big-game hunter named Van Pelt who is intent on killing Alan emerges as he is a product of the game itself. On Judy's next turn a stampede (rhinoceros, African elephants, zebras and pelican) wrecks the house. Among other things, Peter gradually transforms into a monkey after trying to cheat; Peter, Sarah and Judy battle Van Pelt in a local department store; a monsoon floods the house; a crocodile attacks the group; Alan is sucked into the floor by quicksand; an earthquake breaks the house in two; large poisonous spiders come out and Judy is shot by a poisonous barb from a flower. Finally, Alan wins the game just in time when Van Pelt is about to shoot him, causing the jungle elements and Van Pelt to be sucked back into the board in a form of a whirlwind.

Alan and Sarah eventually find themselves back in 1969 again as children, but with full knowledge of their lives after they started playing. Alan reconciles with and admits to his father that he was the one who damaged the machine. Carl gets his job back, and Sam allows his son to attend a local school if he wishes to do so. Alan becomes terrified, thinking that Judy and Peter are still in the attic, but Sarah reminds him that it's still 1969, before Judy and Peter are even born. Sarah gives their game tokens to Alan as a way of showing that they were never in the game. The two chain up the Jumanji board and throw it into a river.

In the present day, it is shown how Alan and Sarah's experiences from the game have changed their futures for the better. Alan and Sarah are married and expecting for their first child. Alan has taken over the shoe business, Carl still works in the factory as the plant supervisor, and Sam is retired, but still alive. Judy, Peter, and their parents meet with Alan and Sarah at a Christmas party, where Alan and Sarah offer the children's father a job in the shoe company and discourage them from going on the ski trip that would have killed them.

Meanwhile in another part of the world, at a beach, two French-speaking young girls hear drumbeats while walking, unaware that the Jumanji board is half-buried in the sand, preparing to claim its next players.

Cast

• Robin Williams as Alan Parrish: A man trapped in Jumanji for twenty-six years.
• Kirsten Dunst as Judy Shepherd: A young girl in the Shepherd family.
• David Alan Grier as Carl Bentley: An employee at Sam's shoe factory who later becomes a police officer
• Bonnie Hunt as Sarah Whittle: A psychic driven into madness after Alan's disappearance.
• Jonathan Hyde as Sam Parrish: Alan's father. Hyde also portrayed Van Pelt, the main antagonist and a big-game hunter from the game.
• Bebe Neuwirth as Nora Shepherd: Judy's aunt.

The Shepherds are portrayed by: Malcolm Stewart as Jim Shepherd, Judy's father; Bradley Pierce as Peter Shepard, Judy's brother; and Annabel Kershaw as Martha Shepherd, Judy's mother. The cast also includes: Patricia Clarkson as Carol-Anne Parrish, Alan's mother; and Gillian Barber as the Realtor. Adam Hann-Byrd and Laura Bell Bundy play Alan Parrish and Sarah Whittle as children, respectively.

Filming

As Peter Guber was visiting Boston, he took advantage of being in New England to invite author Chris Van Allsburg, who lives in Providence, Rhode Island, to option his book. The author even wrote one of the screenplay's draft, which he described as "sort of trying to imbue the story with a quality of mystery and surrealism".

The supermarket scene was shot in March 1995

Soundtrack

Jumanji: Complete Motion Picture Score
Film score (Digital download)/Audio CD by James Horner
Released	November 21, 1995
Length	51:04
Label	Epic Soundtrax

All music composed by James Horner.

Track listing
No.	Title	Length
1.	"Prologue And Main TItle"	3:42
2.	"First Move"	2:20
3.	"Monkey Mayhem"	4:42
4.	"A New World"	2:40
5.	""It's Sarah's Move""	2:36
6.	"The Hunter"	1:56
7.	"Rampage Through Town"	2:28
8.	"Alan Parrish"	4:18
9.	"Stampede!"	2:12
10.	"A Pelican Steals The Game"	1:40
11.	"The Monsoon"	4:48
12.	""Jumanji""	11:47
13.	"End Titles"	5:55
Total length:		51:04

Commercial songs from film, but not on soundtrack

• "Una Voce Poco Fa"
  • Written by Gioacchino Rossini
  • Performed by Agnes Baltsas and the Vienna Symphony
  • Orchestra and Chorus conducted by Ian Marin

• "Night & Day"
  • Written by Cole Porter

• "Serenade in D, Op. 44"
  • Composed by Antonin Dvořák
  • Performed by Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields
  • Conducted by Neville Marriner

• "Locomotive Breath"
  • Written by Ian Anderson
  • Performed by Jethro Tull

• "The Ballad of Gilligan's Isle" (Theme from Gilligan's Island)
  • Written by Sherwood Schwartz & George Wyle

Reception

Jumanji did well at the box office, taking $100,475,249 in the United States and Canada and a further $162,322,000 overseas, totaling $262,797,249.

The film earned mixed reviews from critics, with review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reporting that 50% of 32 critics have given the film a positive review, with a rating average of 5.6 out of 10. Metacritic posts an average rating of 39%, based on 18 reviews. Van Allensburg approved the movie despite the changes and not being as "idiosyncratic and the peculiar" as the novel, declaring that "The film is faithful in reproducing the chaos level that comes with having a jungle animal in the house. It's a good movie."

Reboot

In July 2012, rumors emerged about a reboot of the film already being in development. Columbia Pictures president Doug Belgrad had a conversation with The Hollywood Reporter, saying: “We’re going to try and reimagine Jumanji and update it for the present.”. On August 1, 2012, it was confirmed that Matthew Tolmach will be producing the reboot alongside William Teitler, who produced the original film.

See also

• List of films featuring home invasions

External links

• Jumanji at the Internet Movie Database
• Jumanji at Box Office Mojo
• Jumanji at Rotten Tomatoes