Jumanji (1995) is a movie directed by Joe Johnston and stars the deceased Robin Williams as Alan Parrish, a man who was stuck in a mystical board game after playing it as a boy. Alan, Sarah Whittle (Bonnie Hunt) and two young kids, Judy Shepherd (Kirsten Dunst) and Peter Shepherd (Bradley Pierce) have to finish the game Alan started as a boy, before it destroys the entire twon.
Since a young age, I loved this movie, Robin Williams was so entertaining and charismatic, and the effects were not bad for the time it was released. Now in my adult life, I can see more than cool effects, funny moments and the typical happy ending. In the beginning of the movie, we get broken characters that are put in a dangerous situation and are forced to face their fears in order to prevent more destruction. Its a cool character development movie with very subtle details.
Alan Parrish starts the movie as a kid tormented by bullies and has a rough relationship with his father, Sam Parrish, played by Jonathan Hyde. Sam is an authoritarian, strict person, that despite loving his son doesn´t show it. One day, Alan finds a game called Jumanji, and his life was changed forever. After a hard discussion, Alan tries to runaway from home, but the presence of Sarah Whittle in his front door postpones his desire to defect. The two decide to try out the game, and has consequence Alan gets trapped in the game, escaping only if someone diced 5 or 8. Sarah, incapable of processing the events and controlling her fear, escapes the house leaving Alan trapped in the game. Forever?
26 years later, two kids moved to the Parrish house with her aunt. Judy and Peter lost their parents in a accident. Peter stopped talking sense then and Judy turn into a compulsive liar. The abandoned house had still a lot of the Parrish belongings, including (drums, please!) the Jumanji Game. Being kids, of course they tried the game. Judy was first and Perter was second. Peter rolled a 5 and Alan was finally gets freed from the game. Returning more than a decade after getting stocked in the game, Alan discovers that his father factory went bankrupt, the fortune was lost because his father spend it all trying to find him, and his parents were long gone. Alan wants to restart his life, but he realizes that Judy and Peter are playing the same game he and Sarah started 26 year ago. The three try to reach out to Sarah, in order to finish the game. Sarah at this point is a scared grown woman, who got traumatized by the events that led to Alan´s disappear and the public ignorance to the existence of supernatural occurrences. Until this point, the movie is so depressing. It keeps biting down the main characters, leaving them hollow and broken. The game destroyed Alan´s life and has consequence led Sarah traumatized and untrusting to others.
Well, Sarah, reluctantly, agrees to finish the game. As the game progresses, more dangerous creatures leave the game, and difficult even more the groups chance to save the town. In one of the rounds, a hunter by the name of Van Pelt, also played by Jonathan Hyde, arrives from the game and tries to kill Alan. Alan has been running from Pelt since he entered the Jumanji world. Wow, for a kids movie, this is kinda scary and morbid. Why does Jonathan Hyde portray Van Pelt, if he already portrays Alan´s father? Well, the reason I think explains this fact is, Van Pelt is not a real character, but a representation of Alan´s fears shaped in the form of his own father. Since the beginning of the movie, his father was trying to teach Alan that a real man faces his own fears, so how fitting is the movie´s climax being Alan facing his fears, represented by a distorted and sadistic representation of his father. Don´t forget, were not talking about the Xbox or the PS4, this is a human sucking, all hell breaks loose, board game, with mystical powers and if you cheat you will turn into a fucking monkey humour!! In the end, Alan stops running, faces Van Pelt in the final show down. In the final confrontation between this two, Alan rolls the dice, one last time, and gets “snake eyes” (1 and 1), reaching the main goal of the game, getting JUMANJI written in the centre of the board game. The game ends, Alan and Sarah return to 1969, to exact moment when Alan entered the game. Alan hugs his father and that scared, filled with hate little boy in the beginning of the movie, turns into a man.
Even Sarah, grows as a character. Sarah seeing Alan in danger, instead of running, like she did back then, she saves Alan from quick sand (quick floor?) and even puts herself in the way of the bullet that Pelt shot in the climax.
What happened to July and Peter? Well, Alan and Sarah, now married, recruit them to their business, and prevent the accident that killed them in the previous time line. So, all went well.
Robin Williams acting was superb in this movie, he had to act has a scared boy in a grow man body, shifting in the exact times between a scared immature boy and the man his father always wanted him to be. He made this movie funny, entertaining and, in the exact moments, very sad and depressing. All the cast did a terrific job.
Jumanji is more than a mere action movie for kids, it has more in it´s surface. It´s a movie about fear and it´s power over us, if he face our fears, we well be a better and happier person. This is way, until this date it´s one of my favorite movies and why I´ll never forget Robin Williams. I highly recommend the movie, of course.
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