Looking forward to Ratatouille, and having recently engaged in a debate with a friend and colleague about the shelf life of the Fantastic Four sequel, I got to thinking about legitimately compelling kids’ films, and particularly those of the non-animated persuasion. That led me to think back to Zathura, so I’ll repost a redacted version of a DVD review of the movie that initially ran elsewhere, concurrent with its original release.
Wall Street again, and
taking it seriously), it’s probably on the surface less foolhardy to try to
handicap children’s films. After all, animated smashes like the Toy Story and Shrek franchises are built for the long haul — or maybe just deftly
sold as such. Take away animated films, though — admittedly a hug chunk of
kids’ films these days — and then try picking the last youth-skewing movie you
think you might actually want to revisit with your own children, grandchildren
or nieces and nephews somewhere down the line. Are the Agent Cody Banks flicks or, God forbid, disposable tripe like Martin Lawrence’s Rebound going to have any residual sway
with the adolescent audiences of tomorrow?
and The Polar Express author Chris
Van Allsburg’s sci-fi adventure tale, will hold up admirably, and stake itself
a deserving place in the DVD collections of discriminating film fans looking
for both wholesomeness and quality. Chiefly a tale of fraternal strife and
reconciliation, the movie centers around two bickering brothers — athletic
pre-teen Walter (Josh Hutcherson, above left) and his diminutive, 6-year-old sibling, Danny
(Jonah Bobo, above right). When their father (Tim Robbins) leaves the boys alone in the care
of their inattentive teenage sister Lisa (Kristen Stewart), Walter and Danny
immediately start squabbling. A bored Danny soon finds an old, dusty, metallic
board game, and… presto chango!, the
entire house is magically transported into an outer space world rife with
meteor showers, malfunctioning robots, ice storms and carnivorous, lizard-like
creatures. The only way back “home” is for the family to work together and,
with the assistance of a wayward astronaut (Dax Shepard), complete the game.
screenwriters David Koepp and John Kamps, Zathura
mines a deep reservoir of genuine feeling
often missing in adolescent entertainment, and combines this with enough spry
sensory pleasures to produce a winning piece of entertainment that, truly, the
whole family can enjoy. While Lisa is egregiously underwritten, other
characterizations are crisp, and conflict between the brothers exists in
perfectly measured fashion — not too heavy so as to be a drag, not too
contrived so as to come off as emotionally irrelevant. All the films that push
off needlessly surly adolescents or histrionics in lieu of genuine pubescent
discord could stand to learn a thing or three from the smart, modulated set-up
of Zathura and the emotional
authenticity that subsequently flows naturally.
widescreen release include an audio commentary track with Favreau and
co-producer Peter Billingsley, a look at the making of the accompanying
videogame to the movie and a clutch of featurettes on the work of author Van
Allsburg, the cast, the visual effects and the like. The best of these examines
the vanishing art of model miniatures, and includes interviews with Favreau,
miniatures supervisor Michael Joyce and others about the painstakingly detailed
construction of the six-foot replica of the house from the movie’s
location shoot. A hint for all you future model makers out there — the herb thyme
doubles nicely as bushes, since it doesn’t deteriorate or go bad. A- (Movie) B+
(Disc)