Zathura

We begin this movie by watching a father play ball with his two sons. Walter (Josh Hutcherson) is older and better at catch than Danny (Jonah Bobo), he is frustrated when Danny drops the ball more than he catches it, wasting time before their dad (Tim Robbins) has to go back to work. After the game we learn a few things about the family. The parents are recently divorced and this is the father's new house. It's old and it creeks. And Walter obviously doesn't like his brother much.

The dad leaves, leaving the boy's older sister, Lisa (Kristen Stewart), in charge. She is indifferent about the boys, and promptly falls back asleep, even though it is past two in the afternoon.  Anyway Walter kicks Danny off the TV to watch sports.  After several unsuccessful attempts to get Walter to play a game with him, Danny only succeeds in getting Walter mad at him, and then stuffed in the basement. While down there Danny finds an old game, conveniently sitting on the steps and brings it up to try again to play with Walter.  It is called Zathura and is a game for two players. Danny takes his turn and then is attacked by a meteor shower.

Obviously this is no ordinary game. The entire house is transported into outer space. Realizing they have to play in order to get home, Walter forces Danny to continue the game. With each turn, more bad things seem to happen: Lisa get frozen in cryogenic sleep; they are attacked by Zorgons, a space reptile that burn and eat and eat and burn; Walter even gets a robot that is defective and wants to kill him. Throughout the game the two brothers are arguing more and more, it comes to a head when Danny spins and they rescue a stranded astronaut (Dax Shepard), then cheats to move his piece ahead of his brother's. Walter moves it back and then the game accuses him of cheating and ejects him from the game (and house). The astronaut saves him, but Walter is still mad at Danny for cheating and almost getting him killed and oh yeah, breaking up their parents' marriage. That's a big one.

Walter spins a wish card and the astronaut is worried that Walter will wish Danny away. Luckily, Walter only wishes for an autographed football.  We learn then, that the astronaut played this game once, with his brother and he also got the wish card and he did wish his brother away, leaving him stuck in the game for 15 years until Danny spun him.

The game continues. The cryogenic period is over and Lisa wakes up and the Zorgons return and get their claws on the game. The four of the work together to rescue the game and fight off the Zorgons a second time. When the wish card comes up again, Walter wishes for the astronaut's brother and none other than Danny shows up. Yes, the astronaut is Walter who, when he played the game the first time, wished that Danny had never been born and then was stuck in the game until he was spun by Danny and sucked through a time sphincter (yes a time sphincter) to prevent the same thing from happening again. The second Danny and the old Walter vanish, who knows where, but I'm guessing back to their own timeline to finish their game. But who cares.

Anyway an entire fleet of Zorgons show up right after that, but luckily for them, Danny wins the game and they all get sucked through a black hole as the pieces reset themselves and they return to the exact moment before Danny first spun. Yay! They even remember everything that happened and now are loving brothers. Yay! And Lisa... well who cares about Lisa. Yay!

This movie is in the same universe as Jumanji. I really liked Jumanji, it was a new idea and was entertaining. This film, well obviously isn't new, because it is exactly the same concept as Jumanji, and it is aimed at a younger audience and is not as funny, or as good. It's obvious that they sacrificed quality actors for special effects, because the FX were amazing and the acting wasn't.  There wasn't even that many characters in the movie. Five in total. Six if you count the robot. They didn't even get one to play the mom.

It was predictable and the plot was not very original (I'm not talking about the getting sucked into a game part). It was fun to watch though because there's nothing to think about. In the end it's not that entertaining. 

Grade: 5.5/10