Archive: Arts & Entertainment

When Director Jon Favreau appeared on "The Apprentice" a week or so ago I thought he was an idiot. He described the contestants' task as educating the public on how to pronounce the name of his movie, Zathura (pronounced zuh-THOOR-uh). I thought, if you want to market a movie, why don't you name it something people will understand and remember instead of wasting your marketing budget teaching them to pronounce it?

The movie is about two brothers who find a game called "Zathura" in the basement. When they play it, it comes to life. Since it is a space game, their house inexplicably ends up in outer space and the only way to get back into reality is to finish the game. Wait a minute. Wasn't the 1995 "Jumanji" about a game that comes to life?

So I had low expectations. I was going to say that Zathura lives down to expectations, but the truth is that is a lot worse than I expected. The art direction and cinematography were actually quite nice. The story, theme and characters were, respectively, predictable, predictable and shallow, and surprisingly unlikable.

Twelve year old Walter Budwing (Josh Hutcherson) and his younger brother Danny (Jonah Bobo) don't get along at all. They are obnoxious kids. You feel a little sympathy for Danny, perhaps because he is smaller and less nasty than his brother. But don't misunderstand me, Danny is annoying. They have an older sister, Lisa (Kristen Stewart), whose only apparent reason for being in the movie is to entice adolescent viewers with her belly button. Aside from that she sleeps through half the movie, and her entirely self-absorbed teenaged character ranges from unpleasant to irrelevant.

When the house is launched into outer space and attacked by the evil Zorgons, lizard-like aliens who eat meat ("We're meat," says Danny), I was conflicted. On the one hand I like children. My own children are about the same ages as these characters and I like them and their friends a lot! But on the other I had a strong desire for the Zorgons to eat THESE children with the satisfying side effect of making the movie shorter. In this regard even the Zorgons disappointed.

The plot was like water torture. Take a turn at the game, something predictable happens. Take a turn at the game, something predictable happens. Take a turn at the game, something predictable happens... There was little progression in the plot, and lets face it... you already knew life would go back to normal when the boys finished the game. There was very little suspense.

The one interesting idea (I don't want to give it away, but it involves the identity of an astronaut they pick up along the way) was ploddingly executed, even though it was essential to the theme. But the theme, "Don't be mean to your brother and don't wish he was never born," was thin to begin with.

With Tim Robbins (as the father) in the cast you'd think there would be some substance. He was wasted in this film, as he leaves the house before the game starts and has only an incidental role. Frank Oz, as the voice of a sometimes sinister robot, was entirely wasted. Anyone could have phoned in the robot's performance.

I remember seeing a musical with a friend years ago. It was called "Time," by Tim Rice, who used to partner with Andrew Lloyd Webber. It was fairly awful, but the special effects were impressive. As we left the theater my friend said, "They could have charged double if they had just shown the effects and skipped the play." Zathura suffers the same problem. Interesting to look at, but not engaging enough to sit through.

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