Zathura

Zathura will work its space-magic on young boys.

Official Zathura Site
Family/Action/Adventure
Starring Jonah Bobo, Josh Hutcherson, Dax Shepard, Tim Robbins, Kristen Stewart
Rated PG (for brief language and hazardous situations)
Running Time: 113 Minutes
Released:October 28th, 2005



3 Out Of 5 Bites

Zathura unashamedly touts itself as one in the kind of 1995's Jumanji. While both films in question are from Chris Van Allsburg's books, the latter starred Robin Williams as a man who had been stuck in the netherworld of a board game for 26 years. Children happen across the game, release Williams- (along with a few wild jungle animals not quite as hirsute as Williams himself)- to do his gamey shtick while bonding with his liberator-kids. The film had some novel moments in it's time.

Zap forward ten light years (it'll seem after having seen Jumanji), coat the original plot line with a campy sci-fi pretext and, in Zathura, you have Jumanji meets Lost In Space, sans the loveably fidgety and annoying Dr. Smith.

Brothers Danny (Jonah Bobo) and Walter (Josh Hutcherson) manage to irk, thwart and incite their divorced father (Tim Robbins) into a series of minor domestic foibles that continuously involve the older brother Walter either ignoring the younger's pleas for attention or shamelessly humiliating him into physical or psychological submission. At times, the younger brother waxes a wee bit too whiny and it grates on the endurability factor. Additionally, there is a massive (to the Dad) accident involving a sensitive work project (read, blueprints- or something of the kind- are soiled by the kids' frolic-fighting). And so much so that Dad has to break out to the office to reprint them. And who didn't see this one coming? The movie is pretty much waiting to get the Dad out of the house so the real fun can begin.

Don't forget to insert the up-and-coming and beautifully-stern looking Kristen Stewart as the nebulous, self-conscious afterthought of a sister. She seems included in the film primarily to demonstrate an icky, yet innocently comical, come-on to the Astronaut (Dax Shepard) who is the one caught in the board game in this installment. You are left to your own devices to see why.

The game takes over and anything encountered therein happens in their reality- which happens to be a chunk of earth underneath their now-floating space-house. There are a series of episodic puzzles involving aliens, robots and meteors (et al) that the boys must solve by playing the game. Only with the introduction of the Astronaut do the boys stand a chance to get back.

While being too much of a plot spoiler to divulge the details in how the film resolves the relationship between these four primary characters, it does prove somewhat provocative in a kid-like and cozy way (with the obviously forgiveable scientific improbabilities such as being able to hear the spaceship engines go roaring by....IN OUTER SPACE!). And that is precisely who this movie is geared toward....eigth-to-thirteen-year-olds who won't be so easily shaken from their admiration of the imagination required throughout the picture.