Zathura

Rated PG

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By Todd Karella:
November 11, 2005

Original Story Synopsis:

Movie-Pix Best Guess:

Two brothers find a strange game box and discover that it is more than just a jungle game. There's a space version on the other side.

When they start playing the game, they find themselves in a real space adventure.

It looks exactly like Jumanji. While that was a fun film, does it really need to be remade with an outer space angle??

Sure the kids will like it, but it would be nice to see something a little more original coming out of Hollywood.

~ Can you say Jumanji? ~

Movie-Pix Hit or Miss

Best Guess Results:

It’s hard to say anything bad about this film. The story was fun and exciting, the acting was decent and the film never dragged. The only problem is that this film was already made under the name Jumanji.
Sure it was written by the same man, but a little more originality would have been nice. Once again, two siblings find a magical game that is played out in real life and can’t be

It's a fun family film filled with great special effects and plenty of excitemnt.

The problem is that the film is an exact copy of Jumanji.

stopped until somebody wins. They even manage to find a former player trapped in the games as well.
Walter (Josh Hutcherson) and Danny (Jonah Bobo) are brothers. They come from a broken home where they split

time between their parents. This week they’re at the father’s (Tim Robbins) new house and find that he just doesn’t have the time to spend with them as they’d like.
Walter is resentful of his little brother and blames him for

their parents’ divorce. Because of this, he is particularly hard on him and takes out his frustrations on his younger brother.
Danny looks up to his older brother and is always trying to be more like him.
When their father goes off to work leaving his daughter Lisa (Kristen Stewart) in charge of the boys, she ignores them leaving them to fend for themselves. This leaves Danny free to roam the house where he stumbles upon the Zathura game box

under the stairs.
   Walter won’t play with his brother since he has a reputation for cheating, but that immediately changes after Danny’s first turn. Not only does he receive a card that says meteor shower, but the room is suddenly struck by hundreds of meteors that rip down from the ceiling.
   When the bombardment stops and they asses the damages, they find that the entire house has been transported into deep space somewhere near Saturn. After reading the instructions, they decide that the only way to return home is to keep playing.
   Lisa isn’t much help as she doesn’t listen to the boys when they tell her what has transpired. It doesn’t really matter since she ends up being frozen for the next five turns and three quarters of the film.
   Thankfully, Danny lands on “Rescue an Astronaut” and the kids end up with a new friend (Dax Shepard) that helps them battle the Zorgons, a group of lizard creatures that are attracted by heat and eat meat. The brothers are quite surprised to find out that they ARE the meat.

As they try and escape being dinner, the boys keep playing the game, narrowly escaping a black hole, a killer robot and Walter being ejected from both the house and game for cheating.
There is a twist on the true identity of the astronaut and how he became trapped in the game, but overall the film was quite predictable.

Even so, it’s a fun film that you can enjoy with the children, just as long as you don’t expect anything new.