Zathura

Recently, it seems nothing decent is playing at Coral Ridge Mall, forcing me to go to Iowa City's theatres. This weekend, I again went to the other side of town to Sycamore Mall's Cinema 6 to see first this sneak preview of Zathura before it opens wide release on November 11 2005 and then Jarhead. Zathura was seen at 7:20pm.

Made by the creators of Jumanji, Zathura has the same type of premise that a board game comes alive to affect actions for the players, although this time the board game is an outer space one rather than the perils of the jungle. The main characters are 2 young brothers (ages 6 and 10, played by Jonah Bobo as Danny and Josh Hutcherson as Walter), and they do reasonably well for their ages in this stock movie. The brothers tend to argue a lot and scream, too. I'm not a fan of screaming kids even for a film where it is intended to show how they don't get along.

I went to this one expecting mindless entertainment and it was relatively mindless and somewhat entertaining. Children should enjoy it, although it isn't nearly as good as Jumanji in any aspect. I'm going to give it a decent at the low end of the range. If you have kids, this is a safe one. If not, you might want to pass.

Please feel free to comment on this review or on the movie itself at the forum thread devoted to it at this location.