JUMANJI. A Model Adventure Film Turns Thirty

When I was eight years old, the VHS tape of Jumanji was one of the most frequently played items in my fairly large collection. I kept returning to that title over and over again; I was fascinated by its magical world. I loved the sequences with the stampeding herd of elephants, I enjoyed the sense of unease caused by the enormous mosquitoes and the disgusting spiders. I absorbed those images of a city transforming into a jungle. Jumanji was, to me, a model adventure film. Of course, Robin Williams was a perfect fit for it—the eternal Peter Pan, an adult man with the soul and sensitivity of a child. A magician with whom I identified so strongly. An extraordinary Traveler, freely moving between the world of imagination and my own reality.

Jumanji gave me what I expected from board games or my first video games, but never fully received. Even the most perfect game never became as real as I wanted it to be. I was always aware of the barrier—that we were all constantly pretending, that the stakes and any potential reward were entirely fictional, and that the satisfaction itself was simply not enough. Jumanji was therefore a unique proposition. Rolling the dice and moving along the board took on real significance. There was no need to pretend—everything was real.

I perceived the titular game as an untamable force. Something mystical and dangerous, possessing a power that was hard to resist. The VHS box of the film was inseparably linked in my mind with the board game shown on screen. Putting the tape into the player was tantamount to rolling the dice. How close Jumanji felt to me back then!

Naturally, I experienced Johnston’s film on the most superficial level. The fight with the lion was nothing more than a fight with a lion; the city turning into a jungle was a spectacular use of special effects; the hunter Van Pelt was merely a dangerous opponent in the world of the game; and the crucial abduction of young Alan Parrish was an unfortunate coincidence. I took everything at face value. The meaning of the final shot was obvious to me: the next kids are screwed! All of it was wonderfully tied together and provided a great deal of fun. That was what I expected from cinema at the time.

Over time, however, I drifted away from Johnston’s film. I began reaching for the classics, for serious and ambitious cinema, which I watched somewhat against my own instincts, motivated mainly by the need to see everything and to learn the entire history of film. I still felt affection and a strong sense of nostalgia for Jumanji, but for many years I did not return to Johnston’s work. I was afraid that the special effects would no longer impress me, and above all that the story would turn out to be embarrassingly shallow and naive. I had grown quite skeptical and did not want to shatter the lingering sentiment I felt for the film.

My unease was compounded by the fact that I had previously been disappointed by several other films from my childhood. I would rather not even mention their titles, so as not to offend anyone. Eventually, however, I decided to give Jumanji another chance. I played the game with Alan Parrish once more.

I was terribly wrong! The CGI may indeed look a bit anachronistic, but the parable contained in the film and its narrative sweep still feel innovative and distinctive. I am now certain that Jumanji is a timeless work. It is a film of immense optimism—comparable to that associated with Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life, to which Joe Johnston’s film clearly responds. Jumanji also tells a story of redemption and rehabilitation, creating an alternative reality in which the protagonist has a chance to save himself and take a moral inventory.

In this context, the titular game appears as a tool that allows Parrish to work through the mistakes of his youth, as a link to his disliked and lost father. How important it is that the same actor (Jonathan Hyde) plays both the hunter Van Pelt and Sam Parrish. It is the same rival—one in the imagined jungle, the other in reality.

Being trapped in the world of Jumanji is an allegory for the loss of childhood. Young Parrish is cut off from home, losing that crucial emotional bond always present between father and son. The board game saves him from the experience of loneliness, preventing an actual defeat. It offers the possibility of retreat and of correcting misguided decisions. Jumanji is like a lifebuoy. The world to which Alan returns is a hypothetical one. It seems that the adult Parrish is aware of this. Over time, he realizes that the reward for finishing the game may be just as spectacular as the punishment he suffered when, as a young boy, he first rolled the dice. That is why it matters so much to him—and why I root for him so strongly.

It is also interesting how these worlds—the past and the alternative future—influence one another, on both micro and macro scales. The jungle in which Alan grew up violently invades reality and destroys his family home; the figure of the father is replaced by the ominous hunter; the modern shoe designed by Carl—Alan Parrish’s friend, who worked at his father’s factory—is destroyed in much the same way as Carl’s later police car. These analogies not only bind the story together but also introduce a considerable dose of humor.

The wooden board game connects successive generations of children. The first users of Jumanji, whom we meet in the prologue, come from the nineteenth century (one wonders how many centuries the game had been circulating around the world). It is then discovered by Alan in 1969 and later falls into the hands of siblings Judy and Peter. Jumanji becomes a shared experience for children of different eras. In the final shot, we see another pair of youngsters approaching the game, buried in the sand on the shore of some ocean.

During my first viewings of Jumanji, I predicted nothing good for them. Now I see that scene differently. The titular game appears in the life of someone who needs help. It is worth taking the risk and reaching for it. The unsettling drums echoing from within symbolize nothing more than mystery—seemingly threatening and treacherous, yet also possessing a healing power.