Film
Bristol Film Festival: Jumanji
- Director
- Joe Johnston
- Certificate
- PG
- Running Time
- 104 mins
Problems, problems, problems. You’re nobody in contemporary America unless you’re suffering from some kind of trauma or dysfunction requiring touchy-feely therapy, chat show catharsis or, in this instance, the intervention of an ancient board game that summons the afflicted with the kind of ethnic drumming sounds more commonly associated with those sad beardies of the men’s movement.
As a nipper in 1969, poor old Alan Parrish (the late Robin Williams) is bullied by the local brats and denied affection by his wealthy, emotionless father (Jonathan Hyde), who wants to pack him off to boarding school. So when the drums call him, he finds the Jumanji game buried at the site of a local excavation, rolls the dice, and is promptly sucked into it by an expensive special effect. His pal Sarah (Bonnie Hunt) is too terrified to finish the game and goes into therapy for the next 26 years. Then in 1995 the old Parrish pile is purchased by the guardian of newly orphaned Judy (Kirsten Dunst) and Peter (Bradley Pierce). Such is their glumness that the tribal rhythms soon call them to the game. Instead of discarding it on account of its lack of state-of-the-art graphics, they start, improbably, to play, unleashing the by-now even hairier than usual Williams, a jungle full of animatronic and computer-generated beasts and – deep Freudian concept alert! – a ruthless Victorian hunter (also Hyde) hell-bent on slaughtering our caring hero. Now all they have to do is track down Sarah, confront their respective fears, and complete the game before it takes over their world.
As an adventure yarn, 1995’s Jumanji boasts a simple premise that is bound to appeal to pre-teens everywhere. The animals may not be remotely convincing – for all their expensive, high-tech origins they’re no more realistic than those old Ray Harryhausen stop-frame animations –but they charge about entertainingly enough, and there’s a lovely moment when a cute rhino, huffing and puffing to keep up with the rest of the herd, turns to wink knowingly at the camera. Various giant creppy-crawlies, a car-eating plant, and a troop of bike-riding monkeys add to the fun. But the film persists in slowing the pace to almost funereal levels with all that treacly New Age caring-sharing guff, such that one cannot help but hope that the game will swallow the whole bloody lot of them and the law of the jungle will prevail.
is needed now More than ever
Bristol Film Festival‘s immersive On Location screening takes place in the main hall of the Bristol Museum. A spectacular scene-setting light show is promised. The first screening is sold out, so a second one has been added later the same evening. Do note, however, this this screening is with subtitles. Go here for tickets.
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