Yahoo News ‘Jumanji’: THR’s 1995 Review
On Dec. 15, 1995, TriStar unveiled the Robin Williams starrer Jumanji in theaters, where it would go on to gross $262 million globally and eventually kickstart a franchise. The Hollywood Reporter’s original review is below:
Call it “Game Story.”
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Based on a 1981 book by children’s author and illustrator Chris Van Allsburg, Jumanji tells the story of a mysterious board game with a treacherous mind of its own; where every roll of the dice carries considerable consequences.
The filmed result is a raucous, noisy affair jam-packed with special effects, amusing character turns and some truly surreal sight gags.
And while all the parts never seem to form a cohesive whole and the rampaging critters may be a little intense for younger viewers, Jumanji holds enough distractions along the way to keep audiences occupied.
Boxoffice results should be respectable but TriStar probably shouldn’t expect a stampede.
Young Kirsten Dunst and Bradley Pierce play Judy and Peter, two freshly orphaned siblings who move with their Aunt Nora (Bebe Neuwirth) into an abandoned New England mansion with a spooky past.
Some 26 years earlier, 12-year-old Alan Parrish vanished from that house while playing Jumanji, a very strange board game he found buried in a construction site.
Discovering the game in an attic, Judy and Peter pick up where Alan left off, and in the process conjure up swarms of giant insects, crazed monkeys, indoor monsoons and Alan himself, sprung from Jumanji’s dark jungles a quarter of a century later, looking just like Robin Williams.
Director Joe Johnston is a natural for this kind of stuff, having made Honey, I Shrunk the Kids a surprise smash for Disney. Here he demonstrates the same flair for keeping the barrage of visual effects and the light comedic human performances in harmony.
Unfortunately he’s stuck with a script that runs off in more directions than its stampeding menagerie and includes a clunky prologue resulting in several false starts.
Still, it’s fun to see Williams, in Peter Pan mode here, pairing off with the always entertaining Bonnie Hunt (as his former childhood playmate); while youngsters Dunst and Pierce admirably hold their own.
David Alan Grier gets his share of laughs as a besieged police man.
Working overtime are the special visual effects and animation, courtesy of Industrial Light & Magic, which are certainly entertaining if not quite convincing.
Wonder what they’d be able to do with Twister. — Michael Rechtshaffen, originally published Dec. 7, 1995.
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