Zathura is a kid’s adventure movie, almost identical in concept to Jumanji. Danny finds an old board game called Zathura in the basement of his father’s brand new house. He’s bored and wants his brother to play with him, so he unknowingly starts the game. A card is spit out when it’s your turn and whatever the card indicates happens in real life. Danny and his brother find themselves in the middle of space, travelling to Zathura and unable to stop the game in progress.
I would have loved this movie as a kid. Unfortunately I can no longer classify myself in such a manner, however, so a few things about this movie left a bad taste in my mouth. The plot twist they tried to throw with The Astronaut was extremely transparent. The children were at times so stupid their hesitation to do relatively easy things had to be written into the script as a way to draw out the length of the film. Finally, the 6 year old playing Danny was extremely annoying. I’m not sure if his character was intentionally supposed to be annoying, but I could barely listen to him argue with his brother with his huge bulging eyes.
Overall, this was much better than I expected. I’d happily watch it again.