Jumanji Review

There's a game called Jumanji that has a life

all its own. You have no idea what you're getting

yourself into. An ancient game where the primitive

spirit of the jungle can leap out and take hold

of your world. I've seen things you can't even

imagine. Things you can't even see and those

who have ever played the game know the dangers

that lie within You're afraid It's okay to be

afraid. I am not afraid of anything Prove it

It's a jungle in there. Hello and welcome to

the 48th episode of the MWIRE Movie Weekend Review.

Today we're going to be discussing Jumanji. I

am DFG1Mike and as usual I am joined with Steve

Megatron. Hello. Hello. How are you? I don't

know. A little cross -eyed, but I'll be fine.

How about if you'd stop staying up all night?

Wasn't... going for that. I was actually attempting

to go to bed early. I ended up bullshitting with

somebody and then I had to go type up an article

for the local community newspaper thing that

comes out on every Sunday for free. And I typed

in all Microsoft words and I had to spell check

and all that other shit. And then... I go to

paste it into the form and submit it and then

it comes up with an error because apparently

you have to type it in their form or it doesn't

mean diddly squat. So I had to have window by

side by side and type it again. Yes. So I think

we're just going to get right into this. You

didn't know this until I told you this, but Jumanji

wasn't just a film. It was originally a children's

book. And I remember reading this book in elementary

school. So the way we're going to cover it is

I'm going to give you a little plot on the actual

book and then we're going to talk about the film.

Hopefully this won't take too much time at all.

So as far as the book goes, Jumanji is the title

of a 1981 children's illustrated short story

and fantasy story written and illustrated by

the American author Chris Van Alsberg. It was

made into a 1995 film of the same name. Both

the book and the movie are about a magical board

game that implements real animals and other jungle

elements as the players are playing the game.

The troubles which the players have to overcome

appear in real life, not only in the board game,

Jumanji is the combination of jungle and magic.

Fritz, a bull terrier in all of Chris Van Osberg's

books, appears as the toy dog on wheels in the

third illustration. As far as the plot summary

for the book, this is actually very quick as

well. Peter starts the game by rolling a seven

and unleashes a lion that tries to attack him.

A lion, luckily, is locked in a room. Judy rolls

an 8 and releases monkeys, which mess up the

kitchen. Peter then causes a monsoon and floods

the house. Judy rolls the dice and creates a

rhinoceros stampede that destroys the house.

Peter's next roll releases a deadly python. Judy

can finish the game if she rolls a 12, which

she does. Judy's piece. Reaches the end and she

yells out Jumanji a mist surrounds the house

and when it fades the house is back to normal

Judy and Peter put the game away and returned

it to the tree under which they originally found

it After their parents returned home Judy and

Peter see Danny and Walter two of the parents

two of their parents friends Children who are

known for not reading directions take the game

This book was It was one of my favorites as a

kid it was one of those like children's books

that first got me reading And I just really really

enjoyed the story and of course, you know, I

was six or seven at the time when I first read

this so It was very very cool and then come to

find out they made a movie out of it Jumanji

is a 1995 American fantasy film directed by Joe

Johnston who actually you know now that I'm I

was looking at the at the credits in the film

Joe Johnston almost directed Captain America

Captain America the first Avenger he was in the

running for that It's based on Chris Van Pelt's

popular 1981 short story of the same name. The

story is about a supernatural and ominous board

game that makes animals and other jungle hazards

appear upon each roll of the dice. Expensive

state -of -the -art computer graphics and animatronics

were employed by Industrial Light and Magic for

the special effects sequences. The film stars

Robin Williams, Bonnie Hunt, Kirsten Dunst, Bradley

Pierce, and Jonathan Hyde. It is dedicated to

the memory of Steven L. Price, an ILM visual

effects supervisor who was involved with the

film. The motion picture was shot in New Hampshire,

me in Vancouver, British Columbia. So when did

you first see this? Probably when I was younger.

I don't exactly remember when, but I know I was

younger than 10. I believe I caught it on TV

because of the numerous times that it's always

on. Hmm, yeah. I don't think I've ever actually

rented this. I think I've caught it on TV each

time it's been on. Yeah, I caught it on TV for

a number of years. I don't think I actually went

to the theater and saw it when I was out. And

then I said, screw it, one day. I think it was

on Amazon. maybe and bought two copies of it

because I wanted a copy of it and I know my mom

really likes it for some strange reason I think

it's just cause it's a Robin Williams film that

she likes it and so the basic plot of the film

in 1869 two boys bury a chest near Bradford,

New Hampshire When one boy asks what will happen

if someone on earth sits in the other applies

may God have mercy on his soul The sound of a

tribal drums is heard as the boys ride away A

century later, in 1969, 12 -year -old Alan Parrish

flees on his bicycle from a gang of bullies,

then runs into his father, Sam's shoe factory,

where he meets his friend, Carl Bentley, one

of Sam's employees. When Alan accidentally damages

a shoe that Carl designed, Carl takes the blame.

and loses his job. Outside the factory, after

the bullies beat him up and steal his bike, Alan

follows the sound of travel drone beats to a

construction site and finds the buried chest

which contains the board game called Jumanji.

What did you think of the opening sequence here?

Um, I thought it was pretty interesting how he

ended up obtaining this board game to begin with.

Yeah? Just... you know the fact that he happened

to stumble upon it and it's like oh cool board

game free something new to play I like how he's

uh cause he keeps hitting the damn drums and

I like how um first of all it's it's buried in

a solid dirt wall that he's digging out of and

uh I'm surprised that the rest of the dirt on

top of it didn't just fall over and bury him

alive. That's because it's magic. Yeah, I know.

It wants you to open the game. It doesn't want

you to die before you unearth it. I know, I know,

I know. But I like how he keeps looking around,

looking around, and then after he gets the game

out of the chest, he looks over, I don't know,

like maybe 10, 12, 20 yards away is one of the

construction workers of the construction site.

And I guess this guy sees him and he's just like,

oh shit, and runs off. After taking the game

home, Alan has an argument with his father who

wants to send him to boarding school. Alan prepares

to run away, but his friend Sarah Whittle, who

is the lead bully's girlfriend, arrives with

Alan's bicycle. Alan and Sarah accidentally begin

a game of Jumanji, which behaves strangely. When

a player rolls the dice, the player's piece moves

itself, and a message appears in the board. The

goal is to reach the center of the board and

say Jumanji. On their first two moves, Alan is

Sucked into the board and Sarah is attacked by

African bats. The message for Alan's move was,

in the jungle you must wait until the dice read

5 or 8. This means that he is trapped in the

Jumanji jungle. He will be freed when a player

rolls a 5 or an 8, but Sarah abandons the game.

And then we flash 26 years later to 1995. Judy

and Peter Shepard move into the parish house

with their aunt Nora after losing their parents

in a car accident in Canada. They hear Jumanji's

drumbeats and find the board game in the attic.

When they begin playing, they are attacked by

giant mosquitoes and crazed monkeys. The instructions

say things will return to normal once the game

finishes. So they continue. Peter rolls a five,

releasing both a lion and Alan, who is now an

adult. Alan locks the lion in the bedroom and

then goes to the shoe factory, which is now boarded

up and closed. On the way, he meets Carl, who

lives unhappily as a police officer. In a factory,

a stranger tells Alan that his father abandoned

the business to search for him until his death.

Okay, so Alan's back. What do you think? Um,

I loved the dramatic entrance of Robin Williams

into the scene and He's just kind of like some

kind of crazed weird guy. That's you know, he

looks like a street bum when he sure shows up

Yeah, at least until they make him, you know

shave his beard and shave. Yeah Before he does

that I when I was watching it because I just

watched this like less than eight hours ago.

When I was watching it, I'm like, wow, it's a

good thing I didn't let my beard grow out too

much longer, because holy crap, I would almost

look just like him. When rolling the dice, has

no effect on the board. Alan realizes that they

are continuing the game he and Sarah started

back in 1969, and it is Sarah's turn to roll.

They find her at home, a reclusive outcast traumatized

by the game and its aftermath. She refuses to

play, so Alan has to trick her into rolling the

dice. The following moves release, man -eating

vines, the hunter named Van Pelt, A stampede

of rhinos, elephants, and zebras, and a pelican

that steals the board while increasingly relentless

havoc ensues throughout the town. Among other

things, Peter turns into a monkey after trying

to cheat. Peter, Sarah, and Judy battle Van Pelt

in a hardware store, and an earthquake splits

the house in two. Finally, Alan wins the game

after dropping the dice while concerned. while

cornered by Van Pelt, when he calls out Jumanji,

Van Pelt and the other jungle elements are snaked

back into the game. Okay, um, that covers a lot

of the film, actually. So, um, what was your

favorite thing that came out of the game? Van

Pelt. Just because he was some kind of a old

school hunter, but yet he was clueless about

anything from the future. but he somehow found

some way to make it work in his favor. Did you

know that Sam Parrish and Van Pelt are the same

actor? No, I didn't realize that. I mean, I kind

of got like the distinction that they were very

similar, if not the same, but I mean it makes

sense that Van Pelt would be the same guy being

that. You know, his dad was searching for him,

Van Pelt searching for him, it's kind of a...

Opposite end of the, uh... You know, they're

like polar opposites, but they're both looking

for Alan. Yeah. I think, um... I think one of

my favorite things was, uh... When the aunt is

driving down and she's listening to these self

-help tapes. And the, uh... The stampede comes

by, and she gets out of her car, and after the

stampede has gone by, you see the little rhino,

and he's like, struggling. And he's walking really

slow, and he's like, and he's doing all that

stuff. I thought that was really funny. Yeah,

there are a lot of funny moments throughout this

film. The monkeys are hilarious. Oh yeah, who

wouldn't like monkeys sitting there destroying

a house and running through town and stealing

cars? Oh, forget them destroying a house! Hell,

they stole the damn car! I love that scene. Yeah.

And then they're like, and go off on them. Yeah,

I think they can have the car. Yeah. So the final

scene here, with the game over, Alan and Sara

find themselves in 1969 again as children, but

returning their but retaining their memories

of the game. Alan admits his guilt for destroying

Carl's shoe, Carl gets his job back, and Sam

tells Alan he doesn't have to go to boarding

school if he doesn't want to. Alan and Sarah

then throw the Jumanji board into the river.

26 years later, Alan and Sarah's knowledge of

their experiences during the game has changed

the future for the better. Ellen and Sarah are

married, Ellen's parents are still alive, Ellen

has taken over the shoe business, and Carl still

works there. Sarah is also pregnant. When Judy

and Peter and their parents visit the parishes

at a Christmas party, Ellen and Sarah offer the

parents jobs in the shoe company and frantically

discourage them from taking the planned ski vacation

in Canada, knowing that they would die in a car

crash. Sometime later, two French -speaking girls

hear drumbeats as they walk along the beach where

the Jumanji board is half -buried in the sand.

Now, I think that that last part of the scene,

like, they could have ended this very finely

on just, you know, fading out from the parish

home, but I think the last part of that scene,

the last cut there, was to possibly make a sequel?

Yeah, I do think that they left that open on

purpose for that purpose, you know, for that,

obviously, but it also just kind of shows that

the game is going on whether the story does or

not. Yeah. Yeah. Which, thank God there wasn't

a sequel, as much as I like this movie. And it's

an okay movie? No, we don't need a Jumanji 2.

Watch, now that I say that, you know, tomorrow

when I look at news, oh, we're thinking about

making Jumanji 2! Well, they technically did

in the form of Zathura. Oh, I've never seen that,

so. That's a sci -fi version of Jumanji. Oh,

Jesus Christ. So the cast of this film, you got

Robin Williams, Bonnie Hunt, Kirsten Dunst, Bradley

Pierce, Jonathan Hyde, B .B. Neuwirth, David

Allen Greer, Adam Hand Bird, Laura Bell Bundy,

Patricia Clarkson, and Frank Welker. Somehow

I'm not surprised Frank Welker's showing up.

Well, special vocal effects for voice. Yeah,

animals. Yes. That's a technical term for animal

voices. Yes. Robin Williams... Kirsten Dunst

was in this. Yeah, I remembered she was, but

I didn't really realize that it was her at first.

I actually had to look it up because I had to

look up how the hell old she was because Judy

and Peter, I mean Peter is easily maybe nine,

ten years old. Judy is anywhere from 12 to 14

maybe, so I had to look up both the film and...

and Dunst's birthday. Dunst is two years younger

than me, so she's a year older than you. She

was born in 82, and this came out in 95, so she

was 13 when this film came out. So I guess it

fits in with the actual character, because I

thought she was a hell of a lot older playing

a younger character. Huh. I don't know, there's

a lot of weird, not weird films, but... There

was a lot of weird differences in a lot of her

films because I remember, was it 95 that Small

Soldiers came out as well? I think it was around

that, yeah. Around 95. Yeah, she's in that too.

But, um... Oh yeah. Overall, uh... Fairly good

casting. Robin Williams, genius as usual. Oh

yeah. This was around the time, I think. Didn't...

Didn't Doubtfire come out in 93 or 94? I don't

know. In the 90s, Williams still had a lot of

good movies. Now it's hit or miss. Well, yeah.

That's because he's starting to branch off into

not just do comedy. Like One Hour Photo. What

else has he done that's more of a serious role?

I don't even remember. The only other two comedies

I... Huh? The Night Listener. He's a radio show

host that's gay. Oh. Huh. That wasn't too bad.

I think the most recent movie he's done, next

to Old Dogs, which wasn't too bad, it was the

one where he played the... He ran for president,

he was a comedian like Jon Stewart. Oh yeah,

um, Man of the Year. Yeah, I think that's about

my favorite one of his films. There was Man of

the Year, R .V. Yeah, that was good. Oh, what

was the other one? Damn it, it's right there

too. Licensed to Wed. Yeah, that was Licensed

to Wed. I unfortunately actually have that, I

don't know why, but anyway. uh... overall great

casting in this film uh... and you know that

this is one of the things where you get the kid

actors playing the younger versions and you've

got the adult actors playing the older versions

obviously but it's very believable that those

kids could have been robin williams in body hunt

i mean uh... you know There's some movies where

they get the kid actors to play the younger roles

and they have adult, you know, actual, well I

shouldn't say actual real actors, but more famous

people to play the adult roles and it's like,

wow, what a difference. But this one, it's fairly

similar. Just to give some reception numbers

here, Jumanji did well in the box office, it

took in... a hundred million over a million dollars

in the United States and Canada and 162 million

Overseas totaling 262 million seven hundred ninety

seven thousand a critical reception of the film

was mixed however review and generate and tomatoes

reports that 50 % of 26 professional critics

have given the film a positive review which with

a rating average of five point six and ten Metacritic

posts average rating of 39 % based on 18 reviews

Let's see As far as some legacy notes for for

Jumanji There was an animated series based on

the film that ran from 96 to 99 in 1996 It was

carried by the UPN Network, but later seasons

were syndicated by BKN, which I've never heard

of Maybe that was the Burger King Network. I

don't know Yeah, we told you a bunch of large

whoppers While it followed the film's plot, there

were a few changes, such as the exclusion of

Bonnie Hunt's character, some changes in the

age and relationship of David Allen Greer's character.

Each turn the player was given a game clue and

then sucked into the jungle until they solved

their clue. Robin Williams' character had missed

his clue and was continually searching for it

in order to escape the board game. At the end,

the kids ultimately succeeded in helping to free

him from the game by finding out what his clue

was. Milton Bradley released a board game that

was equipped with not only the game clues from

the film, but also some new ones. The elephant,

zebras, pelican, crocodile man, eating plants,

and barb shooting plants have their own clues.

The board game has a doomsday grid where the

card would go into the other players. Where a

card would go if the other players don't roll

the required rescue item in time. If the grid

fills up, the game will end if a card lands on

this space. A card placed here brings a dreadful

news, the game is done, and all players lose.

Huh. Yeah, this is a Zathara thing. I don't get

that at all. I've watched the Zathura film. I

do like that in its own way. As for this particular

film, I do like the film. It's not a bad movie.

It's just one of those ones that I pretty much

never have to watch again and I'll remember it.

Just because I've seen it so many damn times

that it kills me to sit there through it. I mean,

if it's on cable, I might watch it. But I'm not

gonna go out of my way and watch them like for

instance Netflix or rent the DVD But it is a

good one to sit through Just for mindless sitting

there watching yeah So There were different They

basically list all the clues from the movie version.

They list the clues from the actual board game,

because some of them are slightly different than

the movie. I wish they would have compared the

book and the movie's clues, because I think they're

slightly similar, yet different, I'm not sure.

Overall, it's a good Robin Williams film. It's

fairly okay that Kirsten Dunst is in this. It's

not. It's back before she was in terrible movies.

And movies that should have never had her in

it. It was back before she brought it on. Back

before she played with a spider. Uh, yeah, before

she's, you know, kissing spiders upside down

on webs, yeah. Uh, you know, I like some of her

other movies at this, you know, this time that

she was doing this stuff, so. I dunno, cause

I like Small Soldiers. Small Soldiers was cool.

Small Soldiers actually not only has a Spider

-Man reference with Dunst, it also has a Transformers

reference with, uh, what's his name, uh, uh,

shit. Uh, Kevin Dunn, I think, because I believe

Kevin Dunn is the father in Small Soldiers. Yeah.

So, I don't know. Any other thoughts on Jumanji?

Uh, nope, I think that's it. Okay. Alright, well

thank you for joining us here on MWIRE movie

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Holy shit! We forgot to mention in episode 48

that this is the one year anniversary of M -Wire.

Yay! Yay! Oh crap. Something we all overlooked.

Yeah, well, it's... It all goes back to that

lost time that we had for some strange reason.

We lost like, I don't know, a month and a half,

two months worth of releasing episodes or recording

episodes. And it's like, holy crap, what the

hell? So, yay, MY is one year old. We've had

48 episodes, two commentaries. and a partridge

in a pear tree I guess I don't know yes something

I don't know yeah something I don't know it's

kind of weird that this it's kind of weird that

all the shows are hitting the one -year mark

no not just not just all the shows but the network

in general because the network hit the one -year

mark back in June but yeah anyway happy one -year

anniversary of Mwire Yes, and hopefully many

more to come Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, we need

feedback ladies and gentlemen even if it is a

shitty iTunes review Just give us something Well,

just something just to let us know what you think

about the shoe. Yeah. Yeah, so good bad ugly

Huh I might have to add that to the schedule

at some point. I don't know I didn't know that

was a movie. You didn't know that The Good, The

Bad, and The Ugly was a movie? Well, I did. I

didn't realize... I don't know what it's about.

Oh, jeez. You so need to get educated sometimes.

Alright, so... Happy one -year anniversary to

M .Y .R. We will see you next week. Booyah! I'm

glad you decided to buy this place. I'm sure

that you and your kids will be very happy here.

Every house has secrets. Everybody in town thinks

the place is haunted. But what happened in this

house... Little Alan Parrish. He just vanished

about 25 years ago. is a mystery that began a

long time ago when Alan Parrish was just a young

boy who made an incredible discovery. Jumanji.

You wanna play? Look. In the jungle, you must

wait until the dice read five or eight. What's

happening to you? Roll the dice! 26 years later,

Peter and Judy Shepard are about to play the

same game. and make an incredible discovery of

their own. Are you Alan Parrish? Yeah. Oh, my

gosh. Everyone thought you were dead. Now...

You were shaved before. they must roll the dice.

You're playing the game I started in 1969. I'm

gonna have to play. and finish the game together.

It's not my turn. Whose turn is it? Sarah Whittle?

Alan? 26 years ago, we started playing a little

game. Whoa! God, sir! Ellen! I have spent over

2 ,000 hours in therapy, convincing myself that

the ghost exists. Sarah. Sarah. We're all gonna

sit down. We're gonna finish it. ordinary events

unfolding in Bransford, New Hampshire. TriStar

Pictures presents Robin Williams. In a world.

There, I said it. Happy.