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 Larry J. Franco Frank Marshall Kathleen Kennedy
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. Industrial Light & Magic provided computer graphics and animatronics for the special effects.

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 who plays the game with her brother, 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 a hunter intent on killing Alan. The cast also features Bradley Pierce as the girl's brother and Bebe Neuwirth as her 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 game board in a forest near Brandford, New Hampshire. A century later, 12-year-old Alan Parrish flees from a gang 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 patent, Carl takes the blame and loses his job. Outside the factory, after the bullies beat him 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 is attempting to run away after having an argument with his father, about attending a boarding school, when his friend Sarah Whittle gives his bike back. The two begin a game of 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 a jungle. 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 Fucking 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.

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 game he and Sarah started years ago. Finding Sarah at her house, Alan tricks her into rejoining the game, and the following moves release man-eating vines from a giant flower, a big-game hunter named Van Pelt who has it out personally for Alan, and an animal stampede (rhinoceros, African elephants and zebras). Among other things, Peter 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 all jungle elements to be sucked back into the board.

After that, Alan and Sarah suddenly find themselves back in 1969 again, once again children, but with full knowledge of their lives after they started playing. Alan reconciles with Sam 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 and Sarah chain up the Jumanji board and throw it into a river, where they kiss before leaving.

Twenty-six years later, 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. When Judy, Peter, and their parents meet with Alan and Sarah at a Christmas party, they offer Judy and Peter's father a job in the shoe company, also discouraging them from going on the ski trip that would've killed them.

Meanwhile, two French-speaking girls hear drumbeats as they walk along a beach, where the Jumanji board is half buried in the sand.

Cast

• Robin Williams as Alan Parrish
• Jonathan Hyde as Sam Parrish/Van Pelt
• Bonnie Hunt as Sarah Whittle
• Kirsten Dunst as Judy Shepherd
• Bradley Pierce as Peter Shepherd
• David Alan Grier as Carl Bentley
• Bebe Neuwirth as Nora Shepherd
• Patricia Clarkson as Carol-Anne Parrish
• Adam Hann-Byrd as young Alan Parrish
• Laura Bell Bundy as young Sarah Whittle
• Gillian Barber as The Realtor
• Malcolm Stewart as Jim Shepherd
• Annabel Kershaw as Martha Shepherd
• Frank Welker as the Animal vocal effects (voice) (uncredited)
• Tom Woodruff, Jr. as Lion / Crocodile (voice) (uncredited)

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 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 in the box office; it took in $100,475,249 in the United States and Canada and $162,322,000 overseas, totaling to $262,797,249.

The film earned mixed reviews from critics, with review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reporting that 50% of 32 professional 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.

Reboot

In July 2012 there rumours about a reboot to the film, which is alledgedly already 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 who recently produced The Amazing Spider-Man, will be working on-board on producing the reboot alongside William Teitler, who is the producer of the original 1995 film.

External links

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