Zathura

PLOT:

Two squabbling boys, Walter (Josh Hutcherson) and Danny (Jonah Bobo), are struggling to cope with each other so they could be good brothers, while playing games with their dad (Tim Robbins). Then, when Dad sets off for work, they discover a space themed board game from the basement, where everything inside it becomes real. The boys are eventually drawn into an adventure when their house is magically hurtled through space.

During the course of the story, the boys must overcome their personal ill-feeling held toward one another in order to survive. They are aided in this by an astronaut (Dax Shepard) who appears as a result of the game. This astronaut is eventually revealed to be an older version of Walter, who had been trapped as a character in the game’s world as a result of using a wishing card to cause Danny to disappear- wishing that his brother had never been born-, resulting in him being unable to escape the game as it was no longer his turn and the game could not advance without another player. This backstory becomes the basis, although the viewer only sees its role as such in retrospect, of parallels drawn between the two versions of Walter, including a revelation of the backstory without mention of his name or that of his brother. He is finally released when Walter, drawing another wishing card, wishes the astronaut had his brother back, resulting in the ‘other’ Danny appearing. After the future Walter apologises to his brother, the two seem to merge with their other selves (after the astronaut turns back into another version of Walter) now that the future caused by Walter wishing Danny away has been erased.

Sometime midway through the game, Walter is caught cheating, after he initially thinks Danny did, and is punished by being sucked out into space. The astronaut rescues him.

Accompanying Danny, Walter, and the astronaut is their cantankerous elder sister, Lisa (Kristen Stewart), who while not a player is as vulnerable to the dangers present in the game. She is placed in cryogenic freeze for five turns. She develops a crush on the astronaut, and is thus horrified when she finds out that she fell for an older version of her brother Walter.

The main villains in the movie are the Zorgons; reptilian, biped tool-users who are fond of heat and are attracted to a heat source much like bees are attracted to nectar, because they are cold-blooded. The Zorgons, having burned their own planet to obtain more heat, are nomads who travel through space seeking more to burn and who keep a flock of four-eyed goats on their ship.

Another character, a robot (Frank Oz), first appears as a wind-up tin toy that quickly becomes life-size. It is supposed to defend the players, but as it is malfunctioning it mis-identifies Walter as an alien life form and begins rampaging through the house. Walter uses a “Reprogram” card on the robot, and it instead sets its sights on the Zorgons. A single Zorgon survives the robot’s kamikaze attack and sneaks up behind Walter and Danny as they are wondering where Lisa is. Just as it’s about to kill them, it is crushed and killed by Lisa with Danny’s piano. Unfortunately, in the latter stages of the game, a massive Zorgon fleet arrives and attacks after Walter frees the astronaut and his brother.

Danny eventually completes the object of the game, whereupon the house is drawn into a roaring black hole, which Danny realizes is Zathura. The Zorgon fleet is pulled into the black hole, as are Lisa and Walter. Moments later, they have returned to Earth. All the “pieces” of the game (the house, its furnishing, and the players) have been replaced as they were before the game began. The brothers are thereafter much more cooperative with one another. The boys, and Lisa, retain their memories of the game’s events in which they all agree never to speak of Zathura again.

As the kids get in the car with their mother and drive away, one of their bicycles which drifted off into space and can be seen in several parts of the movie falls back to the lawn. At the end of the movie, there is a scene that takes place 15 years later in which Danny’s son finds Zathura.

REVIEW:

It is definitely getting to be summertime because there isn’t much on TV. I didn’t want to sit through the drawn out 2 hr final of American Idol just to know who won, so this was a good way to pass the time, plus I hadn’t seen it before tonight. Now that I’ve seen it, I have to say that it wasn’t half bad, but it did bring to mind Jumanji.

There is too much of an age gap between my little brother and I for me to relate to the brother plight, but, as with many other critics and reviewers, they got on my nerves, especially the Walter, the older brother. Still, there is something to be said about a little brother trying to be close to his big brother, especially if they’re the products of a broken household.

Kristen Stewart surprised me with her appearace here, but I guess she has done other work besides Twilight. Just like the usual big sister in films like this, she is oblivious to most of the plot until things get really bad, then she is forced to join in and help.

At first, I thought the astronaut, played by Dax Shepard, was a giant douche, but after he got some food in him (something he said he needed after being in a worm sphincter), he turned out to be a pretty good guy.

I really love the fact that they chose to not use CGI for most of the special effects. It shows that they filmmakers care about their craft and the actual film, rather than some cheap thrills. 

The action scenes are prtty cool and many are quite random. The ending was a bit of a surprise, but at the same time it wasn’t.

I liked this film, but didn’t love it. It’s a good family film, but for me it seemed like it was trying to be either a sequel to or another version of Jumanji. Turns out that they share the same illustrator, so it is possible that could be the correlation, until I read the books, I can’t comment on the source material. I do think that many will enjoy it. I know I did.

4 out of 5 stars