#BookToFilm of Jumanji

Based on a picture book, Jumanji has been adapted for the screen a couple of times, and each iteration takes the story further from the source material. 

Published in 1981, the picture book written and illustrated by Chris Van Allsberg is a simple story about two kids who, left home alone for the day, find a safari-themed game in the park and ignore the warning on the box stating “do not begin unless you intend to finish”.  Upon starting the game, the kids discover that the perils one comes across as part of the gameplay come to life.  And as you can imagine, these things wreck havoc on the house as lions, monsoons and stampeding zebras and antelopes roll through.  The kids need to finish the game and get the house back in order before Mom and Dad get home.

The 1995 film adaptation takes the basic premise of the picture book but adds characters and widens the action so it is not just a single house that in imperilled by the game-come-to-life but the whole town.  Robin Williams plays Alan, a man who has been trapped in the game for 26 years and joins the kids in playing the game as a means to escape.

Where the kids are firmly the protagonists in the picture book, in this film version, Alan is the main character and finding the person he was playing against and bringing her back to finish the game becomes a central part of the narrative. 

When viewed through 2022 eyes, the special effects in Jumanji look clunky and don’t always sit right in the frame. At the time, the effects were cutting edge, giving the digital animals individual facial expressions.  This was also among the first films to attempt creating realistic-looking digital fur.

The 2017 film, starring Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart and Jack Black is ostensibly as sequel, but has been modernized for contemporary audiences – Jumanji in this film is a video game – and the film plays out as more of an action movie in which much of the comedy comes from the players taking on avatars wildly different to their real-life bodies and personas.  A 2019 sequel further plays on this premise.

This is one of those film franchises in which the name of the film and the fact a safari-based game is involved is about all that exists of the book it was based on.  I find this kind of thing somewhat cynical, like the studio heads are playing on peoples’ familiarity with the name to drag them into the cinema to see something that bears virtually no similarity to that familiar thing. 

That said, any picture book adapted into a film is going to need some padding to bring it to an appropriate length for a feature film.  A picture book tends to take only a few minutes to read, while a film needs to entertain for 80 minutes or more.

Have you read this book?  Seen the film(s)?  What do you think?  Is the book better than the film?

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