Jumanji - Review

Man, this movie is nowhere near as good as everyone says it is. I know, I know, you can hate me all you want for this one, but Jumanji is not a good movie in my eyes. Now, I did not grow up with this movie at all. I simply wanted to watch it based on the fact that there is a remake coming out around Christmas time this year and I wanted to be caught up or at least have an idea of what the original was like. What I got was a dark, depressing and terrifying movie that isn't too much fun. I feel like you could have gone two routes with this movie. One, you focus entirely on the animals escaping into the city and causing havoc with the kids and Robin Williams doing everything they can to take them back to their home world. There is only one real scene where the fun of that premise is fully realized and that's during a chase through a supermarket where tons of food and other items are flying off the shelves. The problem is that most of the time, it's not very whimsical, it's down right terrifying. Water rising in their house with alligators trying to eat them, sinking into quicksand, a boy being stuck in a car that is being trampled by rhinos and elephants and giant spiders all trying to kill our main characters. I'm almost certain that most little children would be frightened during this movie. The second route they could take is really exploring the childhood trauma plotline about how bad things can happen to children and this is how to deal with it. Except that message is lost in the craziness of the jungle animals coming out into the city and the fact that Robin Williams is sucked into the game as a kid and is released 26 years later to find out his parents are killed. Um, I'm sorry movie, you totally lost me with that extremely depressing setup. I mean, I could buy it if the movie was about that and not marketed as a Robin Williams family adventure with jungle animals. This feels like a movie with two extremely conflicting ideas and the whole time while watching it, I wasn't really amused or really even that thrilled. I was more disturbed than anything. The only silver lining here is Robin Williams and the kids. I didn't even know Kristen Dunst was a child actress before this and you know what, she is actually pretty good. Too bad I can't say the same about this movie.