VividSimon Simply Perfect

TrueHello Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

Portia Hilton Blistering performances.

Sarita Rafferty There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

pinkarray Walter is a know-it-all ten-year-old to his brother and it bothers me how badly he mistreats his brother. The two brothers fighting can get irritating.Danny is 6 years old, using a curse word and acts way more mature than a 6 year old. He constantly whines and refuses to play the game so that he can go home, which makes the story more boring and forgettable.There is also curse words used from 14-year-old Kristen Stewart, who also wears skimpy clothes, lazes about, and doesn't care about anything but her date. There are also hints of sexuality between her and the astronaut, (who turns out to actually be her brother).These three main characters are stupid and selfish. I know, there are some kids out there who act like these characters but that doesn't excuse my opinion that they are stereotypical. The writer is in control of the screenplay, they can succeed in making the characters more unique and likable. Though, there is some cleverness to this movie, the characters still make the movie a bit harder to watch.I don't really mind something like Jumanji, but this is way too much like Jumanji but in space with aliens and robots. At least create a plot twist.There is not a whole lot of suspense or destruction to it. It's kind of written like a bad fanfic by some 11-year-old kid. The kids set things right and make it back home where everything is somehow back to normal?The kids did an OK job at portraying fearful faces, Kristen Stewart is OK as the girl with a crush on the astronaut, the other characters perform natural performances. However, it may have been the directors' fault that the three kids had fake performances.There are some positives to it, there is quite a lot of action to it, breathtaking music and some slapstick humor. I still like the movie even though there's nothing new to be found here. It was fun and I might like to re-watch it again.

jennapeterson Nice premise, some cute comedic moments, but not a movie for adults.There's about 15-20 minutes of plot, and the rest of the screen time is the two brothers yelling at each other to take their next turn in order to advance the game (which only one brother realizes is what they need to do to resolve all the things the game throws at them).The astronaut character is a welcome break from the 2 insufferable bickering brothers. Really wish he showed up sooner! I've seen other reviewers praising Stewart's character as a welcome relief from the brothers, but I find she doesn't have enough screen time to do that. (Never thought I'd say that about Stewart.)

Pokedom Look, I had no idea this film existed until last year. I sat down expecting a fun sci-fi action movie. What I got was stupidity.The movie is centered around a board game called Zathura. When people play Zathura, however, the game comes to life, and the players have to survive. BUT this is a movie targeted at kids. So all sense of danger and common sense are thrown out of the game in favor of keeping the kids glued to the screen. The first thing in the game is that a card pops out of the board and says "Meteor Shower: Take Cover". Then small fireballs rain from above in literally every spot in the house... every spot but where our main characters are. It's so predictable what's going to happen it comes off as lazy. Why not throw in danger? Because that would scare the kids? Well, maybe they should be scared for once!After that, they try to leave the house, only to realize they are now in space. ... wait... there's the small matter of BREATHING IN SPACE in this movie. Seriously, the characters can all just breathe in space now. And I checked; these are humans. And the movie takes place in 2005, so... PLOT HOLE COUNT: 1Lots of boring stuff happens next, but the notable thing is when another character is introduced. This character is supposed to be a plot twist, but this next thing just spoiled it, albeit subtly. One character wishes for something, and the new character says he shouldn't have done that, because he was playing the game too, he had a brother too, and he was so fed up with him he wished him away. Then he was stuck in space forever. Now we know that this guy is the brother that just made the wish, only... the brother's wish was for a football. Wait, wouldn't that make the guy fade from existence? PLOT HOLE COUNT: 2Well there's a lot more I could cover, but none of it is good. Plot holes, paradoxes, heck, there's even a part in the beginning where one of the brothers asks his father to play Super Smash Bros, even though he's holding a set of PlayStation controllers.If you've got some time to kill and some kids to entertain, avoid this movie and put on a decent kids movie. Like The Lion King. Or Finding Nemo. Or literally any other movie other than this.

Prismark10 This is a charming family adventure of two young squabbling brothers causing chaos whilst staying with their father (Tim Robbins.) When they are left alone the younger one finds a board game called Zathura and end up in a real life space adventure with meteor showers, heat attracted lizards, a rampaging robot and a rescued astronaut whilst their house floats in space and their sister is frozen.The film is about co-operation with the siblings doing better as they work together and the rescued astronaut is key in bringing them together. A young Kristen Stewart plays the older sister whose part is largely redundant and seems more livelier when she is actually frozen!Director Jon Favreau brings a Spielberg like charm to the story and gets the best out of the two young actors and the special effects are very good. Co-writer David Koepp, famous for the Jurassic Park films as always brings a familiar beat to his plotting. He really should trademark the predictability of his scripting with only the astronaut's unveiling at the end being a mild surprise.Despite similarities to Jumanji, it is still a good film to watch as a family and younger children will find this enthralling.