Seeing Is Believing In `Jumanji'

Several months ago, Variety described the Robin Williams fantasy movie "Jumanji" as establishing a new state-of-the-art standard in visual effects.

Judging by an early screening held for the show-biz publication, Industrial Light & Magic had topped its work on "Jurassic Park" with a sequence in which "photo-realistic giraffes, elephants, zebras, lions and other wild animals - all computer-generated images - stampede across city streets, running through traffic, climbing over cars and raising havoc on a real location."

That preview of "Jumanji" turns out to be an understatement. The completed movie, which goes into national release tomorrow, also includes carnivorous plants, charging rhinoceroses, giant spiders and mosquitoes, bats, chattering monkeys, a bucking crocodile and an inquisitive pelican - plus a monsoon that was created in water tanks at the British Columbian Research Institute near the University of British Columbia in Vancouver.

The movie's title, drawn from Chris Van Allsburg's 1981 book, refers to a board game designed for children "who seek to find a way to leave their world behind."

Curiosity leads two bored late-1960s adventurers to explore this Pandora's Box, which sucks in one of them (Adam Hann-Byrd), spits him out 26 years later as an adult (Williams), and sends the jungle menagerie out on the streets in 1995.

"The advancement of computer-generated effects was the key to making this film," claims producer Scott Kroopf.

Directed by Joe Johnston, who won an Academy Award for his work with ILM on "Raiders of the Lost Ark," the movie simply couldn't have been produced in this way even two years ago. It goes beyond what "Forrest Gump" and even "Toy Story" attempted.

Part of the challenge was creating "animals with fur and hair," says Kroopf, "which `Jurassic Park's' dinosaurs did not need. It was new ground." Animating hair on a monkey or a lion was particularly difficult.

"The lion was a tall order," Johnston points out. "It's not like building a dinosaur. Everyone knows exactly what a lion looks like."

Some scenes replaced computer animation with robots and hydraulics systems, which have been used to create animal-like effects in "E.T.," the "Free Willy" movies and "The Secret of Roan Inish." In other scenes, mechanical effects were rigged to coincide with planned computer action.

Not all of this looks real, nor is it intended strictly to imitate animal behavior. Like the creatures in Ray Harryhausen's special-effects classics ("Jason and the Argonauts," "The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad"), the monsters in "Jumanji" are frequently given their own heightened, intense personalities.

They're more menacing, more outrageous or, in the case of the monkeys, goofier than the real thing. There's also something incongruous about these jungle inhabitants popping up in wintry New England settings, just in time for a cozy Christmas finale.

Both the November and January issues of Cinefantastique magazine include detailed, well-illustrated stories about the production of the effects in "Jumanji," which grew out of Kroopf's decade-old interest in filming the book.

A Web site for the film (http://www.sony.com) has been created that includes a downloadable screen saver, a board game, interviews with Johnston and the special-effects team, sketches from the film and a direct link to the Jumanji Pavilion, a virtual environment that includes riddles and talking monkeys.

Due next summer is a new IMAX documentary, "Special Effects," that will focus on the visual effects created for "Jumanji," as well as "Independence Day," "Kazaam!" - and a revamped version of 1977's "Star Wars" that will open in theaters in 1997.

George Lucas always felt the original's Oscar-winning special effects were not up to his standards. Now he has the technology to demonstrate why.