A twirling green glowing fog shapes the letters Jumanji while a swooshing sound slashes through a distant howling opens the film.  Consequently, the camera fades into a dark forest somewhere in the New England region where an adolescent and his younger brother swiftly move with purpose through the foggy night.  The year is 1869 and the brothers are about to bury a padlocked strongbox in a remote location with the intention of securing the world from its content.  In the dark hours of the secretive burial, horses twitchingly move while remote cries of wolves amplify the horror of the moment.  Yet, the two children persist to submerge the chest within the earth, as a frightful hammering on drums seems to be coming from within the box.  At the final stage of the entombment of the chest, the younger brother wonders what would happen if someone would find it.  Fearfully the older brother utters the words, ”May God have mercy on his soul.”  The suspense can undoubtedly escape the audience’s attention in this brief opening.

One hundred years later, in the idyllic town of Brantford the young Alan Parrish (Adam Hann-Byrd) finds himself in a fearful situation with a group of bullying kids.  His father too busy to listen, as he runs a successful shoe factory, demands that Alan faces his fears.  Without the fatherly safety, Alan finds himself alone and abandoned, and thuggish kids are outside waiting for him.  He has no other choice than face the beating. Afterwards, anger and sadness drift through him, but something catches his attention.  A distant rhythmical drumming is coming from a construction site close by his father’s factory where he unearths the strongbox that the two boys buried a hundred years earlier.  Inside the box, Alan finds another box with the inscription Jumanji, which turns out to be a board game.  After additional arguments with his father, Alan opens the game with his friend Sarah, but to their dismay they realize that the game has a very real and dangerous secret.  Again, suspenseful anticipation seems to grow within the audience.

Twenty-six years later, Judy (Kirsten Dunst) and Peter (Bradley Pierce) move into the mansion where Alan once lived with their aunt Nora (Bebe Neuwirth), as they have recently lost their parents in an accident.  Both Judy and Peter struggle with several issues at the same time such as their bereavement of their parents, the relocation, and having to live with their aunt.  Yet, they have no idea what other struggles are awaiting for them when they too begin to hear the outlandish drumming coming from the attic.  Nonetheless, Judy and Peter open Jumanji and unlock its secret by a simple roll of the dies.  Here the film truly begins its rapid fall, after a slow climb on the roller coaster, which will swiftly throw the audience around in an amusing and suspenseful adventure.

Now the question is whether Jumanji upholds the quality after the initial twenty minutes.  However, asking this in the review for Jumanji automatically suggests that the film falters, and Robin Williams has not even entered the story yet.  Not that Williams’ performance is bad. On the contrary, his acting actually elevates the quality of the film, as it makes use of a heavy dose of CGI graphics and special effects.  The storyline is a little thin and the film feels too much like a video game where the heroes try to avoid monsters and creatures in order to stay alive.  At times, the film sends out vibes similar to the cheat mode of invincibility turned on in a video game, which ultimately reveals the notion of a successful conclusion.  Despite the flaws of the film, it offers a remarkable swift roller coaster that undoubtedly will keep many viewers attention through its flashy special effects and thrilling amusement.

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COUNTRY

USA

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