Zathura (8 November 2005)
directed by Jon Favreau
starring Josh Hutcherson, Jonah Bobo, Dax Shepard, Kristen Stewart, Tim Robbins, Frank Oz, John Alexander, Derek Mears, Douglas Tait, Joe Bucaro III, Jeff Wolfe
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MPAA rating: Studio: Columbia Pictures, Radar Films, Teitler Film Script: David Koepp, John Kamps Based on the book by: Chris Van Allsburg Music: John Debney Running time: 102 minutes Tags: Action; Adventure; aliens; board games; brothers; Family Film; novel adaptation; Science Fiction; time travel Tactical strength: [6/10]
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for fantasy action and peril, and some language
If you've seen Jumanji, then you pretty much have seen Zathura. In essence, a couple of kids find an old game, start to play, and then realize that the game affects reality in quite serious and perilous ways. Jumanji brings on jungles and stampedes of African animals. Zathura attacks the children with meteor showers and space aliens. In both cases, only by continuing to play the game to its conclusion can the children escape from the game's perils.
If you haven't seen either one, then I would recommend seeing Zathura, because the two boys, Josh Hutcherson and Jonah Bobo, who occupy almost every frame of the 100-minute film, do such an excellent job. In the story, the boys and their teenaged sister Lisa (Kristen Stewart) get shuttled between divorced parents. Walter (Josh Hutcherson) likes sports and wants to spend time with his father (Tim Robbins) but doesn't like having to play with his little brother Danny (Jonah Bobo). Danny looks up to Walter and wants to emulate him, but Danny feels so insignificant when compared to Walter that Danny cheats at most games. The boy's father must leave for an important business meeting and leaves Lisa in charge. To make things short, Danny finds a board game, Zathura, and starts playing alone after Walter refuses to play. Within minutes, the boys have survived a meteor shower and find their house orbiting Saturn. Slowly the boys figure out that the game controls their fate, and that they must play through the game to get home. Early in the game, Lisa gets cryogenically frozen, so she doesn't have much interaction with the boys, but the game sends an Astronaut (Dax Shepard) to assist the boys with surviving the Zorgons -- aliens attracted to any heat source and hungry for meat, including little boys.
Hutcherson and Bobo do an excellent job at portraying brothers. They go through all the aspects of hating and loving each other. You also have to credit director Favreau for using as little CGI work as possible. When the boys light a couch on fire and push it out the living room door into space, Favreau had the the construction crew actually rig a launcher for the burning sofa so they wouldn't have to use simulated flames. Favreau also bulit his entire set on a gimble to produce some very interesting effects. In one scene, Favreau tips the house and you watch as books start flying off bookshelves and the effect makes you believe in the boys' peril as they cling desperately to the walls to keep from sliding out into space.
Zathura provides some good suspense, gives a fair number of laughs, and avoids getting overly sentimental for a movie that essentially promotes the importance of brotherly love. I might have given Zathura a slightly higher score, but the close parallel to Jumanji removed much of the suprise that I might have experienced otherwise.
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