Avis Metacritic

The result is a thrill ride with enough plunges and turns and loop-the-loops to make it worth a spin. What the picture lacks is the magic and resonance you feel in the best of popular entertainments.

Eschewing warm, cuddly imagery just as Mr. Van Allsburg's book does, the film affects a strange, artificial style that has the invasive weirdness of "Gremlins" but none of the charm.

On a scene by scene basis, it is mostly great fun but suffers from a contrived script which repetitively drags characters back to the eponymous magical board game for another effect-producing throw of the dice.

Jumanji is cardboard Spielberg, a B-movie scrap heap of spare parts lifted from "Jurassic Park" and "Gremlins" and "Back to the Future".

Jumanji takes approximately one-hundred minutes for four people to play a board game. The result isn't much more fun or involving than watching a few friends play Monopoly.

As a movie, it's far from compelling. As a thrill ride, though, it's a rampaging special effects and animatronics extravaganza that will make small children cringe behind their seats.

Williams is hardly at his comically inventive best. And the script (adapted by Chris Van Allsburg, and a string of others, from his book) pursues the least exciting avenues possible.

The film is a gloomy special-effects extravaganza filled with grotesque images, generating fear and despair.

Something bad happened on the way from the book to the movie. [15Dec1995 Pg. F.01]

Mostly trite and tacky despite Robin Williams's strenuous acting.