Zathura

I think this is an awful movie. Honestly. It's like Jumanji only instead of the jungle, it's in space. It's repetitive. It's exhausting.

Two kids are left to their own entertainment in a gorgeous old Craftsman style house which of course gets trashed when they start playing this mysterious old game. There's a snotty older sister, an astronaut, and fighting brothers. There's a touching scene of brotherly loyalty at the end.

The tiny role of Dad may or may not have been played by a guy who looked like Tim Robbins. The Astronaut is played by a guy who may or may not have been Zach Braff but turned out to be Dax Shepherd.

Director Jon Favreau has done the ultimate condtradiction: made a movie beautiful to look at and nearly impossible to watch.

The special effects, I'll admit, are spectacular.

It does't matter. The entire movie showcases the systematic trashing of the gorgeous house. All the glowing woodwork and grand rooms. Trashed. Thoroughly. And above all, LOUDLY. This is the loudest most obnoxious movie. The music is loud. The choir synth pads are overwhelming. The screaming and shrieking is grating. Every crash and boom is over the top loud.

How can I watch a beautiful old house get wrecked? Why not just twist my arm behind my back and poke me in the shoulder? For an hour!!

The kids liked it okay. My son liked it because there's a black hole in it and the boy just loves his space physics. I wouldn't recommend it to all kids though. It gets frightening and heavy and tense.

But kids will watch anything, and this proves it! We did laugh a couple of times. I'm not sure if we laughed when we were supposed to, though.

I haven't often found myself wishing that the damn movie would just be over. This is the one. At least it had a happy ending. And yes, the house was okay. That's really all I cared about.