Movie Review - Zathura: A Space Adventure

I'll start by saying this film has nothing to do with the world of Jumanji. There are children in a house who play a board game which comes to life and takes the house into "The Twilight Zone" (Sorry to Rod Serling for sullying his product but I had no other comparison). The similarity ends right there. Take Tim Robbins, a divorced working dad bringing up 2 sons and a daughter. So our first question is why didn't mum get custody? Oh, and in case you were wondering, we never get to see mum anyway. The kids wreck one of his drawings that he needs for a meeting (why his study isn't locked and why he has a drink that can spill anywhere near his work are never addressed.

Dad pops out to work (can you say Home Alone? Quick call Social Services, he abandoned his kids!) and the kids start playing and are very quickly pulled into the world of Zathura where you know they are going to learn moral lessons about getting on with each other and learning tolerance (A film from America is trying to teach the world these things? Get Real! That's like China trying to teach me about freedom!) Big Sister is left in charge and doesn't care about either brother. Again you know by the end she'll be as thick as thieves with both of them. When they run through the house this an obvious set-up to show us how the house is laid out for later in the film so we know how each room interacts with the rest of the house.

The only problem is the dumb waiter, someone "Forgets" how many levels the house has later in the film. Visually the film looks stunning, the Astronauts costume, the Zargon ships and "Goats", the actual game itself looks very 1950's. The Zargons were a bit 1970's Doctor Who type looking. Generally other than that the film is OK. It's a bit slow towards the end and they forget to go right back to the sister after the 5 moves she is frozen for (they go back after the 7th move, I counted) The kids were really annoying, especially the younger one. Tim Robbins could have been in the movie much more. If you want a Jumanji style movie, buy Jumanji.