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Directed by: Jon Favreau Starring: Dax Shepard, Kristen Stewart, some kids Another long gestating sequel, Zathura follows the successful Jumanji's style of an innocuous board game throwing a set of young people in a perilous game for their lives. This time focusing on two young brothers and a game styled on 50's rocket ships it is very consciously a sequel. The film doesn't dwell on most of the elements familiar to the original game but unfortunately doesn't fill in the space with anything new. Considering the nature of the movie, it could be interpreted that it doesn't matter what the people in most of the scenes are doing as long as you get a special effects spectacle somewhere along the way. However, I think Jumanji managed to avoid being that empty by casting a good personality in Robin Williams (in chemically restrained mode) and a good set of actors like Kirsten Dunst and Bonnie Hunt. It also had a pretty involved storyline, dealing with a person's life on hold and anothers held hostage by the trauma of the game. This gave the movie a fair amount of depth to complement the very good special effects. However, this movie is pretty focused on getting poo poo exploded as fast as possible and so it doesn't bother with anything complicated or even interesting. After a fairly straightforward intro of a busy but well meaning father (Tim Robbins, in what amounts to a cameo), a set of brothers indulging in overwrought sibling rivalry, and a sister who has nearly as little screentime as the father (what with sleeping for a third of the film, being frozen for another third, and background noise in the final third), the film takes off with playing the game. But there's nothing to interrupt this as just being a set of vignette's cooked up by the writer to showcase some special effects. The film takes place in a house on the edge of space, so nobody goes anywhere and the place gets stale and boring despite being swiss cheesed every 10 minutes or so. They roll for spaces, read a card, scream, then roll a new card, scream, until they learn a life lesson (happens once), or end the game (happens once). The good is that the special effects are pretty good, with stylized and exaggerated effects. The lizard men aliens are nifty looking too. Also, if you have kids in tow, I'm sure they'll enjoy most of what they see. The bad is that it's just lacking in inspiration or variation. The kids aren't that good as actors, so by the fourth time they get in a shouting match about how one is or isn't a baby, you want the game to black hole them both. Dax Shepard doesn't bring much in terms of comedy other than a few chuckle-worthy lines. The film includes a twist and a life lesson, but the twist is a giant unsubstantiated plot hole and the life lesson is something the kids would learn if they weren't complete assholes to each other. Oh, and the trailer completely rapes the film of every single big reveal and effects sequence. So basically, Zathura is Jumanji without Robin Williams, a real plot, monkeys loving up everything, or much of a sense of adventure. If given the option, take the kids to the vastly superior Legend of Zorro or rent Jumanji if they haven't seen it yet. RATING: 2.0 PROS: Good production values, doesn't waste much time CONS: Not so great child actors, suffers from a lack of plot and personality, trailer gave all the good stuff away ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0406375/
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Oct 30, 2005 01:54
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| # ? Apr 27, 2024 12:26 |
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