Game of the Week: Jumanji

 

I first became aware of the 1995 adventure movie Jumanji...based on the same-titled 1981 children's book by Chris Van Allsburg...while shopping in the late 90s at my local Sam's Club store, then on NW 13th Street.  They were promoting their big-screen television sets and were playing it on DVD...I was impressed with the movie's special effects, especially the stampeding wild animals, to the point that I wasn't all that into shopping that day.  Later on I got to see the entire movie, which starred Robin Williams as a boy from 1969 stuck within a sinister, supernatural board game for 27 years, finally rescued from his dangerous jungle confinement when two other kids hit upon the game and begin playing it in 1996.  Jumanji, one of my favorites, had its spinoffs and remakes, all of which I have consciously avoided; I have also stayed clear of recent versions of classics like The Day the Earth Stood Still, War of the Worlds, and Total Recall...to name a few.  But I did go back and read Allsburg's original book, 35 pages long and about half of which are full-page pictures.  His story is simpler as a brother and sister take home the Jumanji game they found under a tree in their nearby park and play it when their parents go out...it wreaks havoc in the house as each roll of the dice brings forth dangerous animals and manifestations, threatening them and wrecking the house: but like Doctor Seuss's classic The Cat in the Hat, all is made well before mom and dad get back home.  The movie version is more complicated with subplots abounding, both in the 1969 and 1996 time settings.  It was well-acted, funny, suspenseful, intriguing, and compelling...a great mix.  Since this blog feature is about games, this may be the weirdest entry since Jumanji cannot, by dint of being magical in nature, be a real game.  But it takes the outward form of one of those board games (like Parcheesi, for example), where the contestants advance their tokens along the path on the board with each roll of the dice and deal with the consequences of where they land, until the ultimate winner gets to the center of the board, representing the golden city of Jumanji, and chants that name, ending the game and reversing all the mayhem.  Then the players, thereafter understandably wary of this traumatic game, bind it up and get rid of it...but of course Jumanji eventually makes its convoluted way to another set of players.  Jumanji, although very, very problematic while being played, nevertheless served as a great catalyst for transforming the lives of its players and directing them to what should be their priorities...the best games will do that, though I think I'll take a pass on the lions, giant mosquitoes, stampedes, bats, murderous hunters, spiders, predatory plants, crazy monkeys, floods and earthquakes, thank you...