When ‘Jumanji’ was released in February 1996, it received a lukewarm reception – ‘Empire’ magazine dismissed it as a half-term crowd-pleaser that would be forgotten by summer. I remember seeing it at a packed Swansea screening during the holidays, and at the time it felt like little more than a seasonal diversion. Yet here it is, returning to cinemas nearly three decades later, having endured far longer than many predicted.

Part of its curiosity lies in how different it is from the later ‘Jumanji’ reboots with Dwayne Johnson, which transport real-world characters into game worlds. The 1995 original works in reverse: the game spills out into the real world, unleashing chaos onto the streets of a small New Hampshire town. What should remain confined to a board game in the living room becomes a sprawling, unpredictable adventure that bleeds into everyday life.

Robin Williams, no stranger to Peter Pan roles, brings both humour and pathos to the story. The film is not afraid to touch on darker themes: bullying, fractured communication between fathers and sons, and the long shadows of childhood trauma. The characters of the 1990s are forced to finish the same game Williams’s character began decades earlier, linking generations through a shared ordeal. There are even shades of ‘Flatliners’ in the way figures from the past must be tracked down, brought back into the present, and confronted in order to provide healing and closure.

What also gives the film its bite is its flirtation with horror. The game itself carries echoes of a Ouija board, summoning creatures and dangers that threaten the players’ lives. It is unsettling, yet also nostalgic – a reminder of a pre-video game sensibility, when the imagination of board games could feel dangerous, even supernatural.

Ultimately, ‘Jumanji’ carries a simple but resonant message: finish what you started. After 25 years, lives have been derailed, people traumatized or lost, and only by seeing the game through to its conclusion can the characters find closure. That combination of adventure, darkness, and redemption helps explain why a film once dismissed as disposable has survived, still drawing audiences back into its strange, dangerous game.