Zathura: A Space Adventure (2005)

Technically, Zathura: A Space Adventure is a part of the Jumanji series. This is why a portion of my review will compare it to the rest of the movies in the franchise. Keep in mind that it has nothing to do with the story of Jumanji though, other than the fact that this game comes to life, and it involves kids.

Summary

Outside their dad’s (Robbins) house, Walter (Hutcherson) and Danny (Bobo) take turns playing catch with their father. Walter does very well. He’s more athletically inclined but that’s more because he’s ten years old compared to Danny being only six. After Walter’s turn is over, Danny plays catch next and struggles mightily. A frustrated Walter jumps in on his dad’s last throw to Danny and steals the catch, showing off his skills. Danny calls Walter a dick and runs inside. Their dad goes in to console him and finds him hiding in the dumbwaiter. Danny is mad because he thinks Walter is better than him at everything, but his dad disagrees, reminding him of the four-year difference between the two. They talk for a bit more, and they discuss their dad’s divorce from mom and how incredible Danny’s imagination is to build his confidence. Shortly after, dad has to go to a meeting for work, though Walter and Danny bother him to play games. He yells at them, and they go to their room. Now, Danny tries to convince Walter to play a game with him, though Walter refuses because he knows Danny tries to cheat at any board game he plays. Walter reluctantly agrees to play with their walkie-talkies, but Danny somehow breaks one of them, so they go and argue in front of their dad while he’s on the phone. Eventually, Walter tells Danny that no one wants him around, so Danny throws a football at him. It knocks over a drink onto their dad’s work on his table.

Frustrated, he goes to his office to print off another copy of his work and wakes up their older sister Lisa (Stewart) to watch after the two boys, though she’s pretty uncooperative and lays back down as soon as their dad leaves. Danny tries to play more games with Walter, but he’s uninterested. It devolves into Danny playfully hitting Walter in his face with a baseball. A furious Walter chases Danny around the house, eventually finding him hiding in the dumbwaiter. Knowing he’s still scared of the basement, Walter pulls the ropes to send the dumbwaiter directly to the dark basement.

Danny climbs out and walks around the basement, but he starts running once he hears some creepy noises. Eventually, he runs into an area and finds a board game called Zathura: A Space Adventure. The game is only made for two players. All you have to do is turn a key and hit the “Go” button. A number pops up to see how many places you go on the board and the pawn moves by itself. Next, you read the card that pops out of the game and watch what happens. Danny starts the game, but Walter doesn’t want to play. Once Danny draws his first card, he can’t read it, so he gives it to Walter to read for him. It says, “METEOR SHOWER Take evasive action”. They are both confused by this, but as they argue over the meaning, a small meteor shoots right through the card Walter is holding. This leads to a meteor shower happening right in their living room but nowhere else in the house. Thankfully, they are able to take cover in the fireplace and get through it. When the smoke clears, they notice a hole in the ceiling as they look up. For some reason, outer space is very visible. They go out to the front porch to see that the entire house is floating in space, right next to Saturn. Freaking out, they go and wake up Lisa for help, but she flips out on the two for bothering her. They open up her blinds to show her space, but she assumes it’s just dark out and that she’s late for her date. She goes into the bathroom to get ready, but the boys try and show her what the game does. Pissed off, she watches for a moment, but Walter’s turn promotes him to “starship captain”, giving him an extra two spots to move up on the board and nothing else.

Unimpressed, Lisa shuts the door and continues to get ready for her date that will never happen. Walter tries to go again to show her, but the buttons don’t work. Realizing they have to take turns, Danny goes instead and draws a card that says, “SHIPMATE ENTERS CRYONIC SLEEP CHAMBER for 5 turns”. It freezes the entire bathroom up, including Lisa in her tracks.

Trying to figure out what to do now, they read the directions on the game and realize that the only way for things to go back to normal is to finish the game because then the “pieces reset” once everything is over. After Walter’s peer pressuring, they go through with the game. He goes next and gets a card saying his robot is “defective”. A small robot shows up in the room but inexplicably turns into a massive evil robot that chases the two throughout the house. In the middle of the chase, Danny goes, and his card tells them they’re entering a gravity field. The whole house is then tipped slightly sideways, and the boys crash into the walls of the other side of the house. A frozen Lisa falls down the stairs because of it. The robot crashes into the basement and is temporarily offline, though Walter inspects it and notices a mechanism inside that immediately starts to repair itself. They help frozen Lisa back into the bathroom and resume playing, with Walter getting promoted to “fleet admiral” and getting to move up another four spaces. Danny doesn’t want to play anymore, so Walter has to convince him that it’s the only way to get home. However, Danny doesn’t really care about going home and is more bothered by how Walter treats him, so Walter agrees to be nicer to him to get through it all.

Danny agrees to get back to the game and his turn reveals that they will be visited by “Zorgons”, an alien species that eats meat (people). The stakes only get higher from here, as these two bickering brothers try to finish Zathura without killing each other.

My Thoughts:

Even years later, it boggles my mind as to why Zathura wasn’t a bigger success commercially.

I understand that the kids can get a bit annoying. Josh Hutcherson and Jonah Bobo play believable brothers, but the constant arguing and fighting is realistic to a fault. Walter is indeed a dick, and Danny can get irritating in a hurry. You also may not want to hear this, but I agree with Walter in saying that this is Danny’s fault. Obviously, their parents getting a divorce isn’t his fault but them getting into the situation with the game is 100% his fault. If he wasn’t such a cheating little asshole, they probably would’ve won the game even sooner too. To be fair though, this is how kids act, and Hutcherson and Bobo are very good together. The dialogue and chemistry between the two are seamless. They have a lot more personality than Jumanji‘s Judy and Peter too.

Honestly, Zathura is flat-out more fun than Jumanji.

It’s a lot cheerier but keeps the same intensity and action of the first film. It’s funnier, it’s a better all-around family film and it does a much better job dealing with mature themes than the first film ever did. Jumanji went too far in throwing some pretty traumatizing things at you for a family movie and handling them in the wrong ways, but Zathura (though it never gets as dark as Jumanji) is able to explore its more mature topics while keeping the tone generally light-hearted. Admittedly, this is a difficult task to do, but Zathura kicks Jumanji‘s ass at it. Dax Shepard playing the adult that guides the children was a fantastic choice too. Here, he plays a similar role to what Robin Williams did in the original, being the guiding light that the kids need. Shepard plays this cool astronaut that knows Zathura inside and out. Shepard’s charisma and natural likability shines through in any role he plays and that doesn’t stop here. Oddly enough, he’s a lot more fun than Robin Williams was in Jumanji. Is that controversial to say? The astronaut being exiled in Zathura and dealing with it the way he did was so much more admirable to me. Don’t get me wrong, I respect what Alan Parrish went through in the jungle. He came out of that game like he was in Vietnam, but the way the astronaut character handled things was just so much cooler. Plus, it fit the family tone of the movie which should be the goal of a family film, right? He’s a leader, and his character is instrumental to not only making the story work and to give us a break from the kids (they needed someone to be the voice of reason between the two), but he also plays a pseudo-parent type of role vital to the characters’ evolution.

On top of that, the humor and vibe changes as soon as he gets involved, making it that much better. It’s obvious. When Kristen Stewart’s underrated, difficult and confused sister role increases in the second half of the film, the movie easily eclipses Jumanji in entertainment value in fast-paced fashion.

I love that director Jon Favreau made it a point to use practical effects as much as possible, especially the animatronic Zorgon alien race. That creepiness still exists in these animatronic beings, and it added incredible tension in the climax when Danny sneaks onto their ship to retrieve the game. Side note, the “frozen” Lisa that was a full-size model of Kristen Stewart, looked exactly like her. It’s very impressive. Avoiding CGI is difficult, but you can create real “movie magic” if you have the right team behind you to make it happen. Let me tell you, Favreau did just that. He does use CGI for a few things, like the wide shot that shows the house floating through space, but it’s magnificent when combined with everything else. When you overdo the CGI, it’s easy to not be as impressed because we see it so often. However, when you include the practical effects with it, magical moments are created.

You can tell Favreau is channeling some of his favorite sci-fi movies throughout this space adventure. The love can be felt. Moving from the jungle to space is a huge difference but to make a sequel worth watching, sometimes you have to do something drastic. Going to space does create a lot of exciting possibilities too, and he didn’t waste that for a second. Not only was the film a great space opera that includes some serious action for a family movie, but it has a lot of heart that makes the story feel whole. The point of the game/movie is to send a message about the importance of family, love, forgiveness, and understanding. Through it all, they achieved this goal in the midst of the exciting space action. In interviews I’ve read since, Favreau has taken blame for the film’s failure, but I can’t see why. Yes, he captained this ship, but he did a wonderful job. Sometimes, the mainstream audience just doesn’t show up whether it be because of timing, bad marketing, or whatever else. It’s talked about daily with movies like The Iron Giant. Is Zathura a perfect film? No, but it’s still a lot of fun and deserved a lot more fanfare than what it got. How it didn’t do better commercially is a question I’ll never have answered. Plus, the twist ending was beautiful, along with the last half hour. It makes you wish they got into the space part of the movie sooner.

Zathura: A Space Adventure is as underrated as Jumanji is overrated. Taking the game into outer space was a wonderful decision and it’s as every bit as exciting, heartfelt, and adventure filled as Jumanji pretends to be. The cast is wonderful together too, with a lot of funny moments sprinkled in. Highlighted by the always lovable Dax Shepard and Kristen Stewart, this family sci-fi adventure will not only grab your interest, but it will also help a couple of arguing siblings understand each other a bit more. Considering this, any movie that may help a parent is good in my book. Though this film and the original are eclipsed by Dwayne Johnson’s reboot sequels, Zathura is still a nice adventure that slides in comfortably as the third best movie in this four-film franchise.