Jumanji
Taglines: It’s a jungle in there!
Based on Jumanji by Chris Van Allsbur
When two kids find and play a magical board game, they release a man trapped in it for decades – and a host of dangers that can only be stopped by finishing the game.
After being trapped in a jungle board game for 26 years, a Man-Child finally wins his release from it. But he is immediately forced to resume play, and this time, savage jungle creatures are released into the city. He must stop them, but how?
The son of a wealthy shoe factory owner, Alan Parrish, is very upset by his father’s decision to send him to a private school. The boy absolutely does not want to spend the summer in a closed boarding house, despite the fact that his peers not only do not want to play with him, but also made him a target for constant ridicule. Once, fleeing from local bullies, a boy runs into a construction site, where he accidentally finds an unusual old casket. Inside lies the magical board game of Jumanji, starting which you cannot stop until you reach the final. Without knowing this, Alan and his girlfriend Sarah roll the dice, and then a terrible thing happens – after a couple of moves an unknown force pulls the guy inside the game, and the frightened girl who the bats are chasing runs away.
After 26 years, the house of Parrish is acquired by a woman raising two nephews. Curious children, exploring a new home, discover a dusty, old box with a mystical toy. Without reading the rules, they place chips, which causes the appearance of wild monkeys, an angry lion, giant insects and, having grown up, Alan Parrish. He returned home, but not only animals of the jungle, but also a cruel bloodthirsty hunter entered our world with him.
Creators: Jonathan Hensleigh, Greg Taylor, Jim Strain, Jim Strain, Chris Van Allsburg
Director: Joe Johnston
Star Cast: Robin Williams, Kirsten Dunst, Bonnie Hunt
Producer (s): Scott Kroopf, William Teitler
Cinematographer: Thomas E. Ackerman
Production House: TriStar Pictures, Interscope Communications, Teitler Film
Music: James Horner
Original network / Official Sites: Sony Pictures Releasing, Sony Pictures, Universal Pictures
Release Year: 15 December 1995 (USA)
Runtime: 104 min
Genres: Adventure, Comedy, Family, Fantasy
Language: English, French
Subtitles: English
In 1869, near Brantford, New Hampshire, two boys bury a chest with the hopes that it is never dug up again.
A century later in 1969, Alan Parrish escapes a group of bullies and retreats to a shoe company owned by his father, Sam. He meets Carl Bentley, an employee, who reveals a new shoe prototype he made by himself. Alan misplaces the shoe and damages a machine, but Carl takes responsibility and loses his job. After being attacked by the bullies, who also steal his bicycle, Alan follows the sound of tribal drumbeats to a construction site. He finds the chest containing a board game called Jumanji and brings it home.
At home, after an argument with his father about attending a boarding school, Alan plans to run away. Sarah Whittle, his friend, arrives to return his bicycle, and Alan shows her Jumanji and invites her to play. With each roll of the dice, the game piece moves by itself and a cryptic message describing the roll’s outcome appears in the crystal ball at the center of the board. Sarah rolls her first turn and she and Alan both hear an eerie squeaking sound. Alan then unintentionally rolls the dice after being startled by the chiming clock; a message tells him to wait in a jungle until someone rolls a five or eight, and he is sucked into the game. Afterwards, a swarm of bats appears and chases Sarah out of the mansion.
Twenty-six years later in 1995, Judy and Peter Shepherd move into the vacant Parrish mansion with their aunt Nora, after their parents died in an accident on a ski trip in Canada the winter before. The next day, Judy and Peter find Jumanji in the attic and begin playing it. Their first rolls summon big mosquitoes and a swarm of monkeys. The game rules state that everything will be restored when the game ends, so they continue playing. Peter’s next roll, a five, releases a lion and an adult Alan. As Alan makes his way out, he meets Carl, who is now working as a police officer. While Carl asks Alan who he is, the monkeys hijack his police cruiser and drive off in it, and he chases after them in hot pursuit. Alan, Judy, and Peter go to the now-abandoned shoe factory where a homeless man tells Alan that Sam abandoned the business to search for Alan after his disappearance, until his death four years prior. Eventually, the factory closed which caused Brantford’s economic decline.
Realizing that they need Sarah to finish the game, the three locate Sarah, who is now haunted by both Jumanji and Alan’s disappearance, and persuade her to join them. Sarah’s next roll releases fast-growing carnivorous vine plants that almost eat Peter, and Alan’s next roll releases a big-game hunter named Van Pelt, whom Alan first met in the jungle.
Judy’s next roll summons a herd of various animals, including rhinoceroses, elephants, and zebras that cause a stampede, and a pelican steals the game. Peter retrieves it from a river, but on the way back to the mansion, Alan is arrested by Carl, who has recovered his car after the monkeys crashed it. Peter tries to finish the game himself but turns into a monkey after attempting to cheat. Later, the stampede wreaks havoc in town, and Van Pelt steals the game. Peter, Sarah, and Judy follow Van Pelt to a discount store, where they battle him and retrieve the game, while Alan, after revealing his identity to Carl, is set free and comes to their rescue.
When the four return to the mansion, it is now completely overrun by jungle wildlife. They are under attack by one calamity released after another until Van Pelt arrives. When Alan drops the dice, he wins the game, which causes everything that happened as a result of the game to be reversed, all the way back to just before Alan was first pulled in.
Alan and Sarah find themselves back in 1969 as children but have memories of the events that took place. Alan reconciles with Sam, who tells his son that he does not have to attend boarding school if he doesn’t want to. Alan admits that he was responsible for the shoe that damaged the factory’s machine. Alan and Sarah chain up Jumanji and throw it into a river, then share a kiss as they walk off.
In 1995, Alan and Sarah are married and expecting their first child. Alan’s parents are still alive and successfully running the family business. He and Sarah see Judy and Peter and their parents Jim and Martha during a Christmas party. Alan offers Jim a job and convinces them to cancel their upcoming ski trip, averting their deaths in the previous timeline.
On a beach, two young French-speaking girls hear drumbeats while walking, as Jumanji lies partially buried in the sand.