Zathura

Zathura: A Space Adventure
One day, two boys found a mysterious boardgame entitled ZATHURA and decided to play with it. As the game begins, they become virtually sucked into the game as meteors and robots from the game crash into their house, which was now a piece of floating rock in outer space. With the dangers of the game worsening, they realize that they need to end the game in order to restore them back home and back into normality.

It is directed by Jon Favreau who is also a great actor who appeared in numerous films such as “The Replacements”, “Swingers”, and “Daredevil”. Favreau also directed the hilarious Will Ferell movie “Elf” and makes sure ZATHURA is injected with enough humor to make it appealing to its adult audiences. Topbilling the movie is its two kid actors Josh Hutcherson and Jonah Bobo, it also stars the stunningly pretty Kristen Stewart, Dax Shepard, and Tim Robbins. Surprisingly, the voice of Star Wars’ Yoda; Frank Oz who is, himself, a respectected film director with films like “The Score” and “In & Out” also lends his voice as the Robot that appears on this film.

The main theme of this movie centers upon sibling relationships. The two brothers who are the main characters of this movie face the same kind of brother-to-brother conflicts that most kids have. And the story of the movie plays with such theme nicely delivering a Disney-like moral lesson.

ZATHURA can be easily understood immediately as a science fiction version of the movie JUMANJI. Don’t expect it to be a sequel though. There were a couple of people I knew who thought it was so. The concept of a boardgame being played while its danger-turns interact with reality is truly exciting and serve as adrenalin juice to stir up children’s imaginations. But it seems that it’s as far as it can go. Indeed, this movie is a great movie to watch with the family; ergo, with kids. But you’d have to set yourself up into reliving childhood imaginations in order to ensure yourself of having a great time watching it. Its eye candy aspect can only be appreciated if watched in the big movie screen. I can it imagine this movie to be quite a bore if watched on home video or television. Best served as a family movie, ZATHURA is kid’s imagination-come-true, fun-filled ride.