I usually love kid films that are in an essence “out of the world” however although “Zathura” has a lot of fun filled adventure, and some great special effects, I found myself being annoyed by the characters. Lets put it this way the young character of Danny annoyed the crap out of me. Plan and simple as that. Throughout the whole film the kid just wines and cries about every little dam thing. I honestly got very annoyed to the point I was hoping his brother Walter would just punch him in the face and tell him to shut the hell up. However Walter on the other hand is like that kid in elementary school with A.D.D. that used to bully everyone. You know, that annoying kid who if you hit him in the face once who goes off and cries, cause he’s really a pussy. Anyway “Zathura” is a film that is pretty much “Jumanji” in space.
The film is about two brothers “Danny” the younger annoying little brother to Walter the jock wannabe, who thinks he’s better than everyone else. Danny wants to be a lot like his older brother however Walters ego gets in the way all the time and poor Danny never gets the chance to shine like his brother does. When Walter plays a trick on Danny and sends him down into the spooky basement that Danny is so scared to go. The kid finds the board game “Zathura” After grabbing the game and making his way back upstairs, he asks his brother Walter to play it with him. Well Walter says no, however Danny has already started playing and little do they know it but the whole house has just entered the game and is flying though space. So pretty much folks just like “Jumanji” the kids get sucked into the board game.
Now to say I did not like the plot would be false, I really liked the plot, but was not a big fan of the over all script. The characters just straight up annoyed me, all the winning the character of Danny did drove me nuts, Walter was also annoying. However the other characters were pretty good in the script, it was just too bad that I did not care for the two leads as much as I did the supporting cast. The script moves along pretty well though and the story is pretty much straight forward.
I guess you can say the acting is kind of up in the air, well lat least in my opinion anyway. I mean the kid that played Danny drove me nuts and I guess in that aspect you can say he did a great job acting, cause if his character was meant to annoy people then man did that kid do a good job cause he annoyed the shit out of me. However on a more serious level the acting was alright, really I don’t have any complaints about it.
The effect in the film were really cool, I really enjoyed the whole “house floating in space”, and especially when the aliens attacked. The make-up effects with the aliens seemed very puppet like, but all in all it really made the film have a cool space like feel to it. Also the killer robot was great, probably the best thing this film had going for it.
All in all “Zathura” was a fun flick, just that the lead characters really got on my nerves more then they should of had. I guess for young kids this film is a fun filled adventure, but someone of my age and parents it a space adventure with winning children.
– Horror Bob
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- Interview with Andrew J. Rausch - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Rick Popko and Dan West - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Director Stevan Mena (Malevolence) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Screenwriter Jeffery Reddick (Day of the Dead 2007) - January 22, 2015
- Teleconference interview with Mick Garris (Masters of Horror) - January 22, 2015
- A Day at the Morgue with Corri English (Unrest) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Writer/Director Nacho Cerda (The Abandoned, Aftermath) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actress Thora Birch (Dark Corners, The Hole, American Beauty) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actor Jason Behr, Plus Skinwalkers Press Coverage - January 22, 2015
