Jumanji

Jumanji
North American release poster
Directed by	Joe Johnston
Screenplay by	Greg Taylor Jonathan Hensleigh Jim Strain
Produced by	Robert W. Cort Ted Field William Teitler Scott Kroopf
Starring	Robin Williams Kirsten Dunst David Alan Grier Bonnie Hunt Jonathan Hyde Bebe Neuwirth
Cinematography	Thomas Ackerman
Edited by	Robert Dalva
Music by	James Horner
Production companies	Interscope Communications Teitler Film
Distributed by	TriStar Pictures
Release date	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.

In 1969, 12-year-old Alan Parrish is trapped in Jumanji whilst playing the game with his friend Sarah. Twenty-six years later siblings Judy (Kirsten Dunst) and Peter (Bradley Pierce) begin playing and unwittingly release the now-adult Alan (Robin Williams). After tracking down Sarah (Bonnie Hunt), the quartet resolve to finish the game in order to undo all its consequences. The movie also stars David Alan Grier as a hapless shoemaker-turned-police officer and Jonathan Hyde in a dual role as both Alan's father and Van Pelt, a big-game hunter intent on killing Alan.

Jumanji was shot in Keene, New Hampshire, where the story is set, and Vancouver, British Columbia. Despite a lukewarm critical reaction, the movie was a box office success, earning $262,797,249 worldwide from a $65m budget, and was the tenth highest-grossing movie of 1995. In 2005, a spiritual sequel to Jumanji, Zathura, which was also adapted from a Van Allsburg book, was released.

Plot

In 1869, two boys bury a chest in a forest near Keene, New Hampshire. 100 years later, 12-year-old Alan Parrish flees from a group of bullies led by Billy Jessop 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 responsibility and loses his job. Outside the factory after the bullies beat up Alan 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 brings the game home. After an argument with his father about attending a boarding school, Alan decides to run away. However, his friend Sarah Whittle arrives to return Alan's lost bike and the two begin playing Jumanji. When the dice are rolled, the player's piece moves by itself and a cryptic message appears in a crystal ball in the center of the board. Alan's first move causes him to get sucked into the game and a swarm of bats chase Sarah out of the house.

26 years later, Judy and Peter Shepherd move into the vacant Parrish house with their Aunt Nora after losing their parents in a automobile accident. Judy and Peter listen to Jumanji's drumbeats and play the game in the attic. They first encounter giant mosquitoes and their kitchen is wrecked by a troop of monkeys. The game states that everything will be restored when it ends, so they continue playing 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 his father's old factory, now derelict. On the way, he meets Carl, who now works as a police officer, and discovers that the town's economy has been devastated after the factory's shutdown. At the factory, a homeless man reveals that Sam was distraught at Alan's disappearance and abandoned the business to search for him. Both his parents have since died.

Alan agrees to watch while Judy and Peter continue playing, but soon realizes that Judy and Peter are playing the same game he and Sarah started, and therefore they will have to join in. Upon finding Sarah, who suffers mental trauma from Alan's disappearance, they are able to convince her to join them in finishing the game. Sarah's move releases fast-growing plants and a man-eating plant. Alan rolls and a big-game hunter named Van Pelt emerges to shoot him. Among other things, an animal stampede and monsoon damage the house; crocodiles attack the group; Peter transforms into a monkey after attempting to cheat; Peter, Sarah and Judy rig a local department store with booby traps to subdue Van Pelt; Alan is sucked into the floor by quicksand; an earthquake destroys the house; large spiders attack them and Judy is poisoned by a barb from a flower. Alan eventually wins Jumanji when Van Pelt corners him, causing everything that has happened as a result of the game to be reversed.

Finding themselves back in 1969 as children, Alan and Sarah have full memories of later events. Alan reconciles with Sam and admits that he damaged the prototype sneaker in the plant. Carl gets his job back and Sam tells his son that he doesn't have to attend the boarding school. Alan and Sarah chain up the Jumanji board and toss it into a river before beginning a romantic relationship.

In the present during the holidays, Alan and Sarah are married and expecting their first child. Alan has become more mature and has taken over the shoe business, Carl still works in the factory as the plant supervisor, and Sam is retired and 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. They convince them to cancel an upcoming skiing trip to Canada which prevented their deaths.

At a beach in another part of the world, two French-speaking young girls hear drumbeats while walking. The Jumanji board game is half-buried nearby.

Cast

• Robin Williams as Alan Parrish, a man trapped in Jumanji for twenty-six years.
  • Adam Hann-Byrd as Young Alan Parrish.
• Bonnie Hunt as Sarah Whittle, Alan's friend who is devastated due to his disappearance.
  • Laura Bell Bundy as Young Sarah Wittle
• Kirsten Dunst as Judy Shepherd, a young girl in the Shepherd family and Peter's elder sister.
• Bradley Pierce as Peter Shepherd, a young boy in the Shepherd family and Judy's younger brother.
• David Alan Grier as Carl Bentley, an employee at Sam's shoe factory who later becomes a police officer.
• Jonathan Hyde as Sam Parrish, Alan's father who runs a shoe company.
  • Hyde also portrayed Van Pelt, a big-game hunter from the game.
• Bebe Neuwirth as Nora Shepherd, Judy and Peter's aunt.
• Malcolm Stewart as Jim Shepherd, Judy and Peter's father
• Annabel Kershaw as Martha Shepherd, Judy and Peter's mother.
• Patricia Clarkson as Carol-Anne Parrish, Alan's mother
• Gillian Barber as the Realtor.
• Gary Joseph Thorup as Billy Jessup, a bully who picks on Alan for being friends with Sarah.
• Frank Welker as Special Vocal Effects

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 drafts, which he described as "sort of trying to imbue the story with a quality of mystery and surrealism".

Soundtrack

Untitled

All music is 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 Antonín 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 Allsburg approved the movie despite the changes and not being as "idiosyncratic and 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 remake 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 new version alongside William Teitler, who produced the original film. On November 30, 2013, actress Karen Gillan tweeted a picture on her Twitter account that shows a Jumanji boardgame possibly appearing as a cast member.

See also

• Comedy portal
• 1990s portal

External links

• Jumanji at IMDb
• Jumanji at Box Office Mojo
• Jumanji at Rotten Tomatoes