What Year Is It? - Jumanji

Jumanji

A game for those who seek to find

A way to leave their world behind

You roll the dice to move your token

Doubles gets another turn

The first player to reach the end wins

Adventurers Beware:

Do not begin unless you intend to finish

The exciting consequences of the game will vanish only when a player has reached Jumanji and called out its name

This elaborate adaptation of a book by Chris Van Allsburg, starring Robin Williams and Bonnie Hunt, is a thrill-ride throughout the entire flick with fleeting scenes of danger placed sporadically with increasing intervals until the climax at the end. Alan Parrish is a 12 year old boy who lives with his overzealous father Sam Parrish, the owner of a bustling and prosperous shoe factory, who wants him to face his fears instead of running away from them. After deciding to listen to his father’s advice, Alan is beaten by a gang of young hoodlums, leaving him with a bloody lip, a black eye, and sore feet from the walk home after having his bicycle stolen as well. This was all because of a fling with Billy Jessup, had by a little girl named Sarah Whittle, who just happens to be nice enough to come over and bring him his stolen bike back. Before leaving, Sarah and Alan hear the same mysterious drums that he had heard earlier coming from a dirt wall inside the unfinished foundation of a house that was under construction. His instinct led him to unearth a soon-to-be unlocked chest. After using a shovel as a skeleton key, he opens it to find a board game buried in the sand, and then takes it home for better observation to avoid any nosy builders. Once he is home, he opens the game and pulls out two of the pieces which somehow magically affix themselves to the board at two of the four starting corners. His parents are on their way out the door to an event at which Sam is speaking publically, but they decide first to lay a heavy one on Alan in the form of an impending transfer to the Cliffside Boys School. This prestigious establishment even has a building named after Alan’s grandfather General Angus Parrish who is forever iconized in the middle of town as a statue on a horse. We can also find the same likeness in a portrait sculpture of his face in the Parrish house, clearly a supreme role-model.

Alan finds this radical decision to be for the birds, so he packs a bag and on leaving is when he hears that fateful knock from Sarah at the door. After a short explanation, Alan shows Sarah the board game. He reads the first half of the rules and asks if she wants to play. She haughtily says, “I quit playing board games years ago.” Then she tosses the dice as she gets up to leave and they roll a six. One of the game pieces moves itself to the sixth space and in the glowing center of the board comes up a message saying, “At night they fly, you better run, these winged things are not much fun” and from the chimney comes the screeching sounds of bats. Sarah seems a little freaked out by all this and attempts to persuade Alan to put away the game, but he has the dice already in hand and accidentally rolls a five when the eight o’clock chime startles him from the nearby grandfather clock. “In the jungle you must wait until the dice read five or eight” says the centric swirling eye, then all of a sudden Alan is sucked into the game like a whirlpool, leaving Sarah behind screaming on the couch, while you hear him yelling, “Roll the dice! Sarah!” But, before she can even process what is happening, the bats come flying out of the fireplace, chasing her out the front door.

A lot can happen in 26 years, whether you are a father who came home one night in 1969 to never see his only son again, or a little girl who has to convince herself that she didn’t witness a board game completely engulf a human and make up a story about the boy’s father chopping him up into little pieces and hiding him in the house to keep herself from going completely loony, or if you were that little boy who was taken out of his world and submerged in the savage underbelly of the darkest part of the African Jungle from the preteen adolescent age of 12 to a middle-aged 38 years old. Only after more than two thirds of his life was he transported back to his home in New Hampshire when another set of children, named Judy and Peter, have slyly nosed their way into finding this mystifying “game with drums”. Already had their rolls produced massive mosquitos, and masses of monkeys, but when Peter rolled a five on his second turn and the game told him, “His fangs are sharp. He likes your taste. Your party better move post haste.” it releases a male lion of generous proportion with a major attitude problem. It also releases Alan Parrish who wasn’t so little anymore, and comes to the rescue of Judy and Peter for the first time, but it would most certainly not be the last. Alan, dressed in leaves and leather, with a turtle shell shield on his back, outsmarts the lion and traps him in a nearby room. This leads to the question, “Did somebody roll a five or an eight?” And then a wave of excitement comes over Alan. He runs screaming toward Peter, thanking him, then runs all over the house in joy and anticipation. “It’s me, Mom and Dad! I’m home! I’m back!” he shouts as he circles the empty house, only to find the children standing on the stairs. They explain that the house has been empty for years and that everyone thought he was dead.

This news comes as a shock to Alan so he wanders outside to look for any clue of his parents’ whereabouts. In a spot of coincidence and inconvenient timing, local police officer Carl Bentley is flying through the neighborhood in his shiny police cruiser, and would have easily maimed or killed Alan had he not had the jungle-savvy cat-like reflexes to jump up onto the hood. Out comes Carl, who instructs him to, “Get down off my car please, and get up on the sidewalk.” “What year is it?” says Alan. “It was brand new.” states the officer, obviously referring to the car. “No. What year is it?”

“1995, remember?” Judy (Kirsten Dunst) cuts in and does the saving this time, with her smooth tongue she talks their way out of a pickle when he says he’s been in “Jumanji” some Peace Corps mumbo-jumbo distracts Carl long enough for a gang of monkeys to steal his car and let them escape even though he was instructed otherwise. Alan runs off to find his father’s old shoe factory, the place where 26 years ago he accidentally put Officer Carl Bentley’s athletic shoe prototype on the conveyor belt destroying it, getting Carl fired and inevitably destroying the “Soleman’s” footwear career. Not much is left in the factory except an old bum who conveniently has enough information to lead Alan to find his parents. Unfortunately, he finds them underground in a cemetery. There was only one choice and that was to finish the game they had started so everything would go back the way it was before, Judy and Peter knew this but Alan is a bit more hesitant at first. They go back to the house and let Alan clean up from his “Tarzan uniform” and after a quick jab from Judy about shaving with a piece of glass and Alan’s retort of the Clampett’s yard sale, peter convinces him by ways of reverse psychology to keep playing or at least to watch, because he isn’t scared. The only problem now is that it wasn’t any of their turns. It was Sarah Whittle’s turn.

Alan may have been a little wary to keep playing, but Sarah Whittle would need some serious persuasion once they finally found her hiding reclusively under the name Madam Serena who would give psychic readings by appointment only. She faints at the notion of running into that little boy who was chopped up into little pieces 26 years ago, so they carry her back to the Parrish mansion. After some quick thinking, Alan tricks Sarah into rolling a seven and out of the walls starts coming a terrifying plant of viniferous nature. Alan saves the day by using old Angus’ Civil War era sword to cut the main vein on the pod. Next comes Alan’s turn and when he rolls, “A hunter from the darkest wild, makes you feel just like a child.” appears. Van Pelt, the notorious safari hunter, even pictured on the front of the game-board box, who interestingly enough is played by the same actor as Alan’s father Sam, comes out shooting elephant-sized bullets at Alan then chases him out of the house and around the block until he makes his narrow escape. After the next roll and a stampede bursts through the wall and through the house and out into the streets, the next roll is delayed because a pelican flies off with the game is his beak and down to the river. Peter manages to go out on a limb, literally, to grab the game out of the rushing water. They run into Carl again who arrests Alan just in the nick of time to miss being shot by Van Pelt who has now acquired a new high-powered sniper rifle. Peter thinks he can cheat by making the dice land on 12 but is turned into a half-monkey by the game instead.

After Alan admits to the conveyor belt fiasco to Carl and a long chase scene through the local Save-A-Lot, they make it back to the house to keep playing. Sarah’s next roll completely floods the house with a monsoon and alligators liven-up the party, then Alan’s roll lands him chin deep in the floor when it turns to quicksand. Peter’s turn unleashes giant hideous spiders but they are scared away from the earthquake that ensues after Sarah’s next turn. The floor is torn apart freeing Alan, but the game falls down as the house is completely ripped in two. He saves it by some miraculous vine-swinging and opens the game to take his turn. He picks up the dice to roll but Van Pelt has finally caught up to him and forces him to freeze and drop what’s in his hand. One die lands in the game but the other rolls down into the crevasse between the two sides of his once beautiful house. “Any last words?” says the hunter. But the die finally lands and Alan’s piece starts to move into the center.

“Jumanji.” He says. “Jumanji!” and as Van Pelt fires his weapon at him, Sarah had run over as if she were going to stop the bullet, but it slows down and starts whirl-winding around the game like a typhoon with everything else that ever came out of the game including the entire stampede, and the hunter himself, until it was all vacuumed back into the board game like it never even happened. Alan and Sarah were left back in the living room of his home in good ol’ 1969 and everything was as it should be. Alan’s dad forgot his notes for the speech and came back to find Alan rushing into his arms as if he hadn’t seen him for over 26 years. “I’m so glad you’re back.” Alan says. “I’ve only been gone five minutes.” his dad says. “It seems like a lot longer to me.” They apologize to each other for the harsh words from earlier, he admits to putting the shoe on the conveyor belt and you can sense his dad’s feeling of pride when he says, “I’m glad you told me, son.”

After tying bricks to the lid, and throwing it off a bridge, Alan and Sarah never saw Jumanji again. However, they did grow up, and get married, and they also ran into Judy and Peter again when their parents brought them to a Parrish’s Christmas party. Jumanji eventually drifted out to sea where it was later found by two more unsuspecting adventurers on the verge of a wild and crazy journey, all because they heard some drums coming from a box that had washed up on the beach.