List Price:   $14.94 Price:   $10.99 find out more information

Buy posters from this movie

Ten years ago that game was Jumanji. Players chose cards which gave directions and/or warnings that then magically materialized to be dealt with. Here the game is Zathura. Same set up, though in this case the Flash Gordon-esque game looks like something that Ralphie might have found under his Christmas tree back in 1947. All it takes is one roll of the dice (or, as it is here, one press of the GO button) and the boys, unwitting teenaged sister Lisa (Kristen Stewart), and their entire house are floating just off Saturn’s rings. Along the way they pick up a stranded astronaut (Zach Braff clone Dax Shepard), a malfunctioning robot (voiced by Frank Oz) and a boatload of hungry Zorgons. Like Jumanji, which the filmmakers (or at least the marketing department) actually go out of their way to tie this movie to (“A new adventure from the world of Jumanji” is the actual tag line), the story is super kid-friendly and clever in a what-would-you-do? sort of way. Unfortunately, these similarities also cut down on any real sense of danger. Like Honey, I Shrunk The Kids there is never any doubt whatsoever that no matter what happens, the kids will all be fine, and everything is going to work out. The only question is what route the movie’s going to take to that preexistent end.

Director Jon Favreau (Elf) and screenwriters David Koepp (War Of The Worlds) and John Kamps (The Borrowers 1997) do a wonderful job of keeping the thrills coming. And though the action is handled well, it is the first fifteen minutes, in which we are introduced to Danny, Walter, Lisa and their dad (a wonderfully natural Tim Robbins), and get to experience a typically morning with this family (the boys fight over whether to watch “Spongebob” or “Sportsdesk”; Robbin’s dad wonders aloud if they shouldn’t have rented Thirteen after sixteen-year-old Lisa refers to “hooking up” with her boyfriend that night), that the movie hits on all cylinders with pinpoint accuracy. Forget the sci-fi, Favreau, Keopp and Kamps should make a dramedy about the minutiae of life in a single-parent home. With this cast. Now.

And it really is worth mentioning that though trailers often give away vital plot points (and sometimes erroneously include footage not even in the film itself – e.g. the original ending of the 1990 Richard Gere-Andy Garcia crime film Internal Affairs) this is truly a case of so much being shown that there are virtually no surprise left for the audience; no threat that we haven’t already seen: the T.Rex-like zorgons, the malfunctioning robot who grows from six inches to seven feet tall within seconds; the meteor shower; the cryogenically frozen sister. There is a third act twist that, while clever enough, doesn't reeeeallly hold up under too much scrutiny. But otherwise if you’ve seen the trailer you’ve pretty much seen the film.

Ultimately, while there is a certain sense of déja vu that permeates the entire production, there is also a nice, loose retro feel to the visuals, sort of like a Daffy Duck space opera, that give the proceedings a well-needed boost. And though “Zathura” may not be quite the second coming of “Jumanji” that it would like to be, it does stand by itself as a pretty nifty way to kill a Saturday afternoon with the kids.

 del.icio.us    
link directly to this review at http://efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=13483&reviewer=384
originally posted: 11/18/05 17:11:28
 printer-friendly format