The idea of people getting sucked into a bizarre board game that becomes a battle for life itself might seem a natural for a horror film.
But director Joe Johnston, who made Honey, I Shrank the Kids, opts for the fantasy-adventure-comedy route, with Robin Williams as the man trapped inside the game's invisible jungle for 26 years.
After a slow first half-hour, Johnston and Williams have quite a lot of fun with the idea, as two kids at Williams's old house start playing the game and release the 'prisoner', plus a whole jungle-full of wild life, on to an unsuspecting town.
Each throw of the dice produces a horde of natural dangers which, though entertaining, is patently absurd, as the (computerised) carnivorous plants, raging rhinos, man-sized mosquitos and leaping lions appear from out of the blue and not out of the game.
Never mind, the plot's various ends are neatly tied at the end and its moral tidily driven home.
Not for easily frightened tots: others will love it.
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