Jumanji (1995)

Jumanji is a 1995 American fantasy-comedy film about a supernatural board game that makes wild animals and other jungle hazards materialize upon each player's move. It was directed by Joe Johnston and is based on Chris Van Allsburg's popular 1981 picture book of the same name. Industrial Light & Magic provided computer graphics and animatronics for the special effects. The film stars Robin Williams as Alan, a man who emerges from the game's unseen jungle world, along with Kirsten Dunst as a girl who plays the game with her brother, David Alan Grier as a hapless shoemaker-turned-police officer, Adam Hann-Byrd as Alan when he was a boy, Bonnie Hunt as the woman who played the game with Alan when they were children, and Jonathan Hyde as both Alan's father and a hunter intent on killing Alan. The cast also features Bradley Pierce as the girl's brother and Bebe Neuwirth as her aunt. The film is dedicated to the memory of Stephen L. Price, an ILM visual effects supervisor who was involved with it. It was shot in Keene, New Hampshire, where the story is set, North Berwick, Maine (the Parrish Shoes factory) and Vancouver, British Columbia.

In 1869, two boys bury a chest containing something dangerous and terrifying in the woods near Brantford, New Hampshire. When one of them asks if someone digs it up, the other replies "May God have mercy on his soul". The sound of tribal drums is heard as the boys ride away. A century later, 12-year-old Alan Parrish (Hann-Byrd) flees on his bicycle from a gang of bullies, then runs into the shoe factory owned by his father, Sam (Hyde), where he meets his friend Carl Bentley (Grier), one of Sam's employees. When Alan accidentally damages a machine and ruins a new shoe design, Carl takes the blame and loses his job. Outside the factory, after the bullies beat him up and steal his bike, Alan follows the sound of tribal drumbeats into a construction site and finds the buried chest, which contains a board game called "Jumanji". Alan takes the game home and has an argument with Sam, who insists on sending him to boarding school. Alan prepares to run away from home, but his friend Sarah Whittle (Laura Bell Bundy), who is the lead bully's ex girlfriend, arrives with Alan's bicycle. Alan and Sarah begin a game of Jumanji, which behaves strangely: When a player rolls the dice, the player's piece moves itself and a message appears on the board. When Alan makes his first move, a vortex sucks him into the board, trapping him in an unseen jungle. He will be freed when a player rolls a five or an eight, but Sarah quits the game after being attacked by African bats. Twenty-six years later, Judy and Peter Shepherd (Dunst and Pierce) move into the Parrish house with their aunt Nora (Neuwirth) after losing their parents in an accident. By this time, it has been rumored that Alan was murdered by his father, hacked to pieces and hidden inside the walls of the house. Judy and Peter hear Jumanji's drumbeats and find the game in the attic. When they begin playing, they are attacked by giant mosquitoes and crazed monkeys. The instructions say things will return to normal when someone wins, so they continue. Peter rolls a five, releasing both a lion and Alan (Williams), who is now an adult. Alan locks the lion in a bedroom, then goes to the shoe factory, which is now closed down. On the way, he meets Carl, who works unhappily as a police officer, and discovers that the town's economy was devastated by the factory's closure. In the factory, a stranger tells Alan that Sam abandoned the business to search for his son until his death in 1990. When rolling the dice has no effect on the board, Alan realizes they are continuing the game he and Sarah started in 1969. The next move is Sarah's. They find Sarah (Hunt) at home, a reclusive outcast traumatized by the game and its aftermath. Alan tricks her into rejoining the game, and the following moves release man-eating vines from a giant flower, a hunter named Van Pelt (Hyde), a stampede of rhinos, elephants and zebras, and a pelican that steals the board. Increasingly relentless havoc ensues throughout the town. Among other things, Peter starts turning into a monkey after trying to cheat; Peter, Sarah and Judy battle Van Pelt in a local store; a monsoon floods the house as well of a crocodile attack; and an earthquake splits it in two. Finally, Alan wins the game just as Van Pelt is about to kill him. Van Pelt and the other jungle elements are sucked back into the board. With the game over, Alan and Sarah find themselves as children in 1969 again, but they both remember the game. Alan confesses his guilt to his father for damaging the machine, Carl gets his job back, and Sam allows Alan to attend a local school. Alan and Sarah throw the Jumanji board into a river where Sarah kisses him before leaving. Twenty-six years later, Alan's and Sarah's knowledge of their experiences during the game has changed the future for the better: Alan and Sarah are married and expecting a child, Alan has taken over the shoe business, Carl still works there and Alan's father is still alive. When Judy, Peter, and their parents visit the Parrishes at a Christmas party, Alan and Sarah offer Judy and Peter's father a job in the shoe company and frantically discourage the parents from going on the skiing trip that would lead to their deaths. Sometime later, two French-speaking girls hear drumbeats as they walk along a beach, where the Jumanji board is half buried in the sand.