A movie as wild and exotic as its name, Jumanji is one chaotic collision of jungle adventures after another. The title of this raucous kid-flick refers to a mystical board game that unleashes the dangers of the jungle with each roll of the dice. When a swarm of African bats chases a girl down the street or a raging monsoon floods a living room, Jumanji is an intensely satisfying safari of thrills. But when the movie strays from its central gimmick to become a ponderous lesson in feel-good family psychobabble, the audience may not be so eager to play. The story begins in 1969, when young Alan Parrish finds the Jumanji game buried in the ground. As he and a friend begin to play, Alan gets sucked into the perilous jungle inside. It isn’t until 26 years later, when Peter and Judy Shepherd discover the game, that Alan is set free (the rules require someone to roll a five or an eight). This imaginative, magical game is both a fascinating idea and the film’s greatest feat (the movie is based on Chris Van Allsburg’s children’s book of the same name). Right from the start, we can tell that Jumanji is no ordinary game. Ominous riddles hint at the creatures to come, the primitive playing pieces move on their own and cheating is definitely not allowed (when caught, poor little Peter is slowly transformed into a chimp). As the adult Alan Parrish, Robin Williams is once again working in the genre of fantasy, a category that has produced some of his best work (including The Fisher King, Aladdin and the underrated Hook). Though he never quite reaches the wondrous, man-child quality that Tom Hanks achieved in Big, Williams manages to bring some high-spirited playfulness to his role. And though Kirsten Dunst and Bradley Pierce are appealing and sympathetic as the beleaguered Shepherd kids, Jumanji is one of those movies in which actors are merely props, living barometers of the excitement and fun. As in a growing number of today’s films, the true stars of Jumanji are its special effects. Using both animatronic models and computer-generated images, Jumanji‘s reckless menagerie ranges from the astoundingly realistic to the disappointingly fake. At its worst, the film features a band of mechanical monkeys and some plastic, rubbery spiders, but in those scenes with a riotous stampede of elephants, zebras and rhinos, its effects are on par with those in Jurassic Park. If anything drags Jumanji down, it is its absence of a sense of fun. For all its rampaging beasts and treacherous vines, Jumanji spends too much time meddling in family psychology to let its escapades burst free. Trying to moralize with a message, the filmmakers seem to think they are making an important family film rather than recognizing the movie as the slick, frivolous – though brilliantly conceived – adventure flick that it is. Hence, Judy and Peter aren’t just ordinary kids; instead, they’ve recently lost both parents in a car crash (Peter hasn’t spoken to an adult since). Likewise in the opening scenes with Alan as a young boy, so much time is spent showing him being harassed by bullies and pestered by a stern, unloving father that it takes forever to finally get to the game. Of course, through their various escapades, each character becomes a better person in the end. Which is all well and good, except that the main reason the audience has come is to see those lions and tigers and bears. As long as the fur is flying and the game is in gear, the movie can’t be beat. But as a burdensome oration to kids, Jumanji makes you want to shout, “Just roll the dice and play!”
