Sunday, December 04, 2005
REVIEW: ZATHURA
Brook and I were really looking forward to Zathura, the film based on Chris Van Allsburg's book of the same name. Van Allsburg also wrote The Polar Express and Jumanji. Zathura is very similar to Jumanji, but even Jumanji was better than Zathura. Here's the story - two young brothers fight all the time, and while their dad is at work one Saturday they find themselves with nothing better to do than to agitate each other. The youngest, Danny (Jonah Bobo, a kid I didn't think was overly cute nor an overly good actor - but the woman behind me kept oohing and ahhing over "how cute that little boy is" - whatever!), is lowered in a dumbwaiter as punishment by his older brother, Walter (Josh Hutcherson, very cute and a good actor). Danny finds himself down in the basement and spies a game called Zathura on the stairwell. He drags the space-themed game upstairs and basically forces his brother to play it. Weird things start happening - oh, yes - they are not just playing the game - THEY ARE IN THE GAME!! Of course, even though weird things are happening they cannot stop playing the game, they must continue in order to get everything back to normal. Disappointing effort from Jon Favreau, in his follow-up to the wonderful Elf.Official Website: http://www.sonypictures.com/movies/zathura/index.html
Grade: 2 out of 5 Lone Stars
