Jumanji

By: Ashten Elliott

     In 1995 the original Jumanji came to theatres the movie’s plot revolved around a magical board game which caused the jungle in which the game took place to come to life. The movie is based on a children’s book of the same name. The movie was released to meh reviews as though it was enjoyable to watch it had a bland story and poor use of characters. Years later in 2017, the Jumanji series returned with Jumanji welcome to the jungle. The plot of this movie was the same as the original however the board game is replaced with a video game. This movie got more favorable reviews as the set pieces remained but this time with a more streamlined story resulting in a more rounded experience. I enjoyed Welcome to the Jungle as it was funny with a great cast and wonderful world. This isn’t the end of the series either as Jumanji the next level the sequel to welcome to the jungle is coming out this December 14th so that’s good. Of course with the concept of a board game that brings its players into its world, there has to be a physical game to go along with it and there is. The board game is just called Jumanji and is very similar to the one in the movie. The game is played in a really nice wooden box and is a basic roll the dice and have something happen type of game. The game can be played with up to four players and the goal is to get to the center of the board before everyone else. Every time someone lands on a blank space you draw a card and roll dice to escape the card’s trap each person has to roll the corresponding symbol or you lose a life and the card is placed on the board if this happens eight times then everyone loses. If you land on a rhino space the rhino goes in front of your piece and you can choose to go back one space or go back the number rolled until someone else lands on a rhino space. If you land on the 5 or 8 space you have to roll one of those numbers to go forward and if you land in the jungle space you go through a lot of trap cards. Overall the game is pretty fun simple but fun my biggest complaint would probably be the dice used to escape traps as they just have stickers on them so they fall off easily other than that the game is pretty fun.