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Jumanji
Metascore
39 out of 100

Generally unfavorable - based on 18 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 3 out of 18
  2. Mixed: 9 out of 18
  3. Negative: 6 out of 18
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  1. San Francisco Examiner
    Reviewed by: Walter Addiego
    75
    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.
  2. TV Guide
    Reviewed by: Staff(not credited)
    63
    Regrettably, however, the weird elegance of Chris Van Allsburg's much-praised picture book has been all but lost in translation.
  3. USA Today
    Reviewed by: Mike Clark
    63
    Based on a popular children's book by Chris Van Allsburg and directed by that "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids" guy Joe Johnston, Jumanji is a calculated but very entertaining special effects extravaganza. [15Dec1995 Pg. 01.D]
    All this critic's reviews
  4. Empire
    Reviewed by: Staff(not credited)
    60
    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.
  5. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: Elvis Mitchell
    60
    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.
  6. Entertainment Weekly
    Reviewed by: Owen Gleiberman
    58
    Jumanji is cardboard Spielberg, a B-movie scrap heap of spare parts lifted from "Jurassic Park" and "Gremlins" and "Back to the Future".
  7. San Francisco Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Peter Stack
    50
    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.
  8. ReelViews
    Reviewed by: James Berardinelli
    50
    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.
  9. The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
    Reviewed by: Liam Lacey
    50
    The terror sequences (not only animals but monsoons and earthquakes and quicksand) are scary until they get monotonous: after a while, you have a sense you're watching a clip reel from every Hollywood disaster flick ever made.
  10. Variety
    Reviewed by: Leonard Klady
    50
    The screenplay, however, denies the film a solid foundation. Jumanji is diverting in a splashy , eye-catching manner, but is about as substantive and durable as filigree.
  11. The New Yorker
    Reviewed by: Anthony Lane
    50
    The movie takes time to warm up, it weakens into soppiness at the end, and the game itself, if you think it through, makes very little sense.
  12. Washington Post
    Reviewed by: Desson Thomson
    40
    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.
  13. Chicago Sun-Times
    Reviewed by: Roger Ebert
    38
    The film is a gloomy special-effects extravaganza filled with grotesque images, generating fear and despair.
  14. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: Jack Mathews
    30
    Something bad happened on the way from the book to the movie. [15Dec1995 Pg. F.01]
    All this critic's reviews
  15. Washington Post
    Reviewed by: Rita Kempley
    30
    The script boasts more writers than the computerized menagerie's got megabytes, but they haven't come up with much variety or humor in what is essentially a string of catastrophes.
  16. Christian Science Monitor
    Reviewed by: David Sterritt
    25
    Mostly trite and tacky despite Robin Williams's strenuous acting.
  17. Newsweek
    Reviewed by: John Leland
    20
    Director Joe Johnston ("Honey, I Shrunk the Kids") turns this fantasy into a mean-spirited exercise in terror.
  18. Time
    Reviewed by: Richard Corliss
    10
    Director Joe Johnston's elaborately dressed kids' movie--about a board game that sucks its players into a perilous jungle overrun by lions, rhinos, monkeys, crocodiles and spiders--spends so much time on the how of special effects that it neglects the why of characterization.
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User Reviews

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User Score
7.6 out of 10

Generally favorable reviews- based on 31 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 9 out of 9
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 9
  3. Negative: 0 out of 9
  1. ShlumGuy
    9
    Metacritic got this one WRONG, this was a great movie. Too many people compare the book to the movie directly which is horribly bias, and unfair. Judge this movie without the book in mind, it is unfair to do otherwise. If you do, which you should since every other movie should be judged that way, this way a great movie!… Full Review »
  2. [Anonymous]
    7
    Liked it as a kid. It was no masterpiece, but it was quite fun.
  3. Jboy2468
    7
    Jumanji is a movie that revolves around a board game in which your rolls change and possibly destroy the environment around you. This idea is excellent. But, Jumanji didn't make me feel the intensity that it could have shown. I think this movie would have been a masterpiece if it wasn't aimed toward a young audience. It's something that could have been dramatic and tense, not humurous. If you decide to avoid this issue, other plotlines such as a history of the game's affect on people will make you love this movie. Overall a good movie worth an encore!… Full Review »
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