Jumanji

Ask anyone of my age - I'm 31 for context - and they'll tell you that Jumanji was one of their favorite movies growing up. It's considered a modern classic for a reason, even despite its very few degraded visual effects, the movie holds up as a relic of childhood nostalgia for anyone from the 90s. I, for one, know that I watched the hell out of it as a kid, and I know tons of people who would easily say the same. Even for someone like myself, the rare Robin Williams nonfan (don't get bent out of shape, I don't dislike the guy, I was just never gaga like everyone else) I can recognize how necessary his role to the films central success was, and why it wouldn't have worked without him. Despite playing a part of something so bizarre, he also gave this fantastical film a very grounded reality because he himself is simply so welcoming as a person.

But of course, where would a movie be without its tie ins, and I dare to say that Jumanji had perhaps one of the greatest tie ins for a movie of all time. Or, at least, the greatest concept of a tie in. So rarely do you get something that so easily lends itself to merchandise. Most movies have to rely on character related merch, but Jumanji was a rare example of a movie based entirely around something everyone already does; playing a board game. There is nothing better when it comes to merchandising for your film or TV show or whatever is when you have a physical object in said thing that consumers will clamor for. Something you can release a physical version of. Whether that's a piece of jewelry the character wears, a book the character reads, or, in Jumanji's case, a board game everyone plays. And if you think I'm wrong, just visit Hot Topic and look at all the merch exactly like what I'm describing. The fact you can buy a journal that is modeled exactly like The Handbook for the Recently Deceased from Beetlejuice proves my point.

So, now that we're somewhat veering off topic, perhaps I should pull it back around to why we're here to begin with. To discuss a board game. Well, Jumanji is the board game equivalent of a video game adaptation of a movie. It exists because the thing it's in exists, and without it, it wouldn't exist at all. And that's not even going into the fact that the movie wouldn't exist without the book it was based on. It's a long, slippery slope my friends. But even with that in mind, we have to ignore it and ask...is Jumanji fun? Because just because something is based on something else doesn't mean it can't be good. I've played plenty of video game movie adaptations in my day, and a handful of them have been more than enjoyable. So why can't Jumanji be the same?

I suppose the answer is because Jumanji is too basic to be fun.

Jumanji, in its essence, is about surviving to the end of the game, but isn't that just what every board game is? To reach the end before the other players? What makes Jumanji so different? I suppose it's the concept of peril that stalks you at every turn, ranging from things like spiders to a hunter to an earthquake. The game is - quite literally - stalking you. The game itself is the danger, not the other players. That's sort of a unique concept, I'll grant it that much. Except...that's all it has going for it.

The board itself looks like a sloppy version of Candy Land, just much less visually interesting give or take the sidebar with the Rhino charging at you, and the pieces are completely uninspired. The dice are kind of cool, but they're hardly dice, and you get boring plain white die with those, so they aren't even the sole dice needed to play. The idea of the danger cards is neat, because that's the entire hook of the game, but it's less like an actual threat and more like a cute eerie version of Chance cards from Monopoly. And, if we're being honest, the entire concept of Jumanji isn't even really that original because before Jumanji there was a board game called Fireball Island, which also hinges entirely on the board itself being a danger to the player. And while the book, Jumanji, came out in 81 and the game, Fireball Island, released in 86, the game of Jumanji itself as a physical thing didn't exist until the movie so I say I have an argument to stand on. The whole game kind of feels like a somewhat half baked amalgamation of lots of other board games painted with a sheen of newness disguising its obvious theft.

I'm afraid to attack it, because it represents something I hold quite dear, which is the movie, but the game and the movie - outside the name and their general connection to one another - are vastly unrelated because one is something you watch and one is something you partake in. Watching a movie is a passive experience, but playing a board game is an active experience, and while even a bad movie can be enjoyable, a bad board game just becomes tedious. Jumanji, as a board game, is fairly boring and uninspired, which is odd given that it feels wholly inspired by about a thousand other board games. Even its most unique concept, the threat of the board itself, isn't all that threatening when you get right down to it, because all the danger lies in the cards. There's no game pieces, the board itself isn't dangerous like Fireball Island, and all the danger is represented in cutesy little nursery rhymes about animals or some other nefarious nature that's about to do you in.

I don't like being harsh on things I like, and I like board games, and I like Jumanji as a whole. Marketing wise it's one of the best things to ever come out of a movie, because they can directly sell you the singular most important aspect of that movie in a box to play yourself, and as a marketing executive, you couldn't ask for better PR. But when you take away the movie, when you take away the book, if Jumanji had no legacy to stand on and instead existed primarily as a board game, I doubt it'd be as well remembered as it is, if it managed to be remembered at all.

So yeah, that's Jumanji. It's certainly unique, because there's nothing else really like it in the terms of a game from a movie, but it also can't skate by entirely on its uniqueness. I wish it had more to offer than simply being "the board game from the movie" and could defend itself as a board game proper, but it simply can't. It's just not interesting enough.

Roll the dice, but be aware

The danger lurks just out there.

To beat the boredom and be free

You have to yell JUMANJI!