By: Michael Sykes

Staff Writer

Robin Williams encourages Bradley Pierce to continue on playing the game. From vidaficcional.blogspot website

This year marks the 30th anniversary of Jumanji, the 1995 adventure film starring Robin Williams, Kirsten Dunst, Bradley Pierce, and Bonnie Hunt. The film follows a magical board game that comes to life. The players enter into another dimension filled with crazy adventures. When two kids, played by Dunst and Pierce, begin a game, they accidentally release Williams’ character, who has been trapped in the game for decades after playing it as a child. To set him free for good, the children must finish the game, facing obstacles like carnivorous plants, stampeding rhinos, a relentless hunter, and more.

The movie won the Blockbuster Entertainment Award in 1996 for Favorite Action Family Film and the Young Artist Award in 1996 for Best Performance by a Young Actor in a Voiceover Role (Bradley Pierce). It was also nominated for an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects and a Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy.

The movie spawned a real Jumanji game that came out in the same year as the movie, which was manufactured by Milton Bradley. The movie also spawned a cartoon series with the same name that was broadcast on the UPN (United Paramount Network) station, which is now called The CW (CBS and Warner Bros. The show lasted for three seasons and is now on the Tubi app. The Movie also spawned two sequels, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle and the sequel Jumanji: The Next Level.

The Jumanji board game from the movie. from the Nerdevil.it website

The movie was based on the 1981 novel by Chris Van Allsburg, which won the Randolph Caldecott Medal in 1982 for illustration. In a 1995 article in the Los Angeles Times, the author noted that while the film faithfully captures the chaos of the jungle game coming to life, he was nonetheless pleased with the cinematic rendition of ‘Jumanji’.