The games people play, from 'Jade' to 'Jumanji'
By Parvathi Nayar Narayan
JAKARTA (JP): Game playing has become quite a buzz word, though the games played by the protagonists of two movies currently showing in town, Jade and Jumanji, couldn't really be more different.
Jade: Weakly plotted adult mayhem
Supposedly a psychosexual thriller, both elements are provided by Linda Fiorentino, who stars as Trina Gavin, a clinical psychologist with a somewhat unorthodox lifestyle.
The opening sequence is a long camera pan moving from sumptuous objets d'art and the conventionally beautiful, to the realm of the bizarre, strange collections of fertility masks, weapons, tribal carvings. One suspects that this is meant to parallel the movie's all-too-cliched premise that savage needs exist in people once stripped of their veneer of urbanity and civility. Creaky symbolism apart, the art direction is admittedly the best thing about the film, with its rich and opulent visuals.
The music intensifies; to the soundtrack is added the sounds of someone being hit and squealing in pain. One looks for blood -- on cue the treacly dark fluid oozes from underneath an oriental screen. All of which sets the note for the predictable story that is to unfold. The movie makes a half-hearted stab at atmosphere, by trying for an Oriental flavor using Chinese symbols and the Chinatown area of San Francisco. It then throws in some gratuitous sex for shock value. All that results is a mish-mash from which the film cannot possibly be rescued.
The plot revolves around solving the murder of millionaire Kyle Medford. David Corelli (David Caruso), a district attorney, is assigned to the case, which turns out to be a real can of worms. It gets progressively messier, involving everything the scriptwriter could come up with, from murder and blackmail to prostitution and pornography,
It also gets uncomfortably close to home, with Corelli's old flame Trina Gavin and her husband Matt Gavin (Chazz Palminteri) dragged into the case. Caruso and Palminteri were cast, incidentally, after the roles were turned down by Cruise and Brannagh -- not difficult to guess why.
It is written by Joe Eszterhas (Basic Instinct and Showgirls) who seems to have perversion, very weakly plotted at that, on his brain. And as for details like plot, tying up loose ends, characterization and character motivation, Jade sports more holes than Emmanthal cheese.
Jumanji: Fun-filled dungeons and dragons
You'll never look at Scrabble, Clue or Trivial Pursuit in quite the same way again. Jumanji is a board game to beat all board games, an amalgam of elements from virtual reality, fantasy and necromancy, with thrills and dangers too real for comfort!
The Jumanji board informs its players that it is a "way to leave the world behind". It has seemingly innocuous rules -- those who get doubles while throwing dice get second chances, and so on. However, the forfeits hold consequences that turn out to be a great deal more frightening than Monopoly's jail card (...go directly to jail, do not pass Go, do not collect US$200).
Trapped
Accidentally, young Alan Parrish is trapped in the weird jungle world of Jumanji. Equally accidentally, 26 years later he is released. The grown Alan Parrish (Robin Williams) then has to save his New England town of Brantford from the disasters unleashed by the game. In this he is aided by his new friends, two recently orphaned children, Judy and Peter.
Robin Williams as Alan Parrish plays the kind of role one has seen him in before. Still, it comes so easily to him, the portrayal of the grown man who at heart is a fun-loving schoolboy. Judy is played by Kirsten Dunst recently seen as the woman-child in Interview With a Vampire. Luckily for Jumanji, though, the two children manage to be savvy without descending into the smart-alecky obnoxious horrors that Hollywood delights in too often. In other supporting roles are Bonnie Hunt, David Allen Grier and Bebe Neuworth.
The extension of a board game into real life is a fascinating concept. The One Game, a mini-series on British Television, dealt with the same theme but its focus was the seamless intermixing of a board game with daily life. The haunting, mysterious quality of the film arose from the ambiguities of where one began and one ended.
On the other hand, Jumanji's approach is straightforward and simple, even too simple. The basic premise at the heart of the film is nevertheless very interesting -- "What if the characters of a board game were to actually come alive?"
The result is an action packed adventure dealing with the invasion of our familiar world by the fantastical creations of another world, each playing by different rules. Along the way, however, the human protagonists find some very human answers to the problems of communication and growing up.
The recognizable yet subtly different creatures from Jumanji's surreal jungle, and other special effects, were created by the wizardry of Industrial Light and Magic company.Jumanji is based on the children's book by Chris Van Allsburg, and is positioned as a film for children. However, one suspects its real audience is actually board game and fantasy enthusiasts, or people similar to the character played by Williams, grown-ups with the secret wishes of a child.