Netflix Gets The Most Overlooked Sci-Fi Adventure Sequel Of The 2000s
Despite its poor performance at the box office and its bizarrely low audience rating on Rotten Tomatoes, Zathura, now on Netflix, is one of the best kids films of its time. It has been so overlooked that even though it has huge stars, many people still don’t know about it.
Zathura Has Been Forgotten
I came across Zathura: A Space Adventure a few years ago when I was looking for movies to watch with my kids that we hadn’t already seen (We’re movie people. We’ve seen a lot of movies.). Dax Shepard, Josh Hutcherson, Kristen Stewart, and Tim Robbins all star in this film based on a book by the same name. It also just so happens to be set in the same universe as Jumanji. How could I have missed this?
A Jumanji Book Sequel
While the Zathura book is a sequel to Jumanji, the book and the films are barely connected. Chris Van Allsburg wrote Jumanji in 1981 as a children’s picture book. The story centers around an enchanted board game found by two kids in a park. As they play the game, wild safari animals enter their reality. The kids have to finish the game to get everything back to normal. It’s simple and sweet.
A Wild Space Adventure
20 years later, in 2002, Van Allsburg wrote Zathura, a book that picks up where Jumanji left off, with two brothers finding Jumanji in the park, but beneath it, they find another game, Zathura. As they begin to play, the house lifts off into space, and the brothers must deal with meteor showers and aliens. The book ends when one of the brothers goes back in time (via a card in the game) and ensures his brother never brings the game home.
The Film Expands The Original Story
The film Zathura, however, deepens this story, thanks to the screenwriters David Koepp and John Kamps and the director Jon Favreau. If you didn’t already have the background outlined here, you’d never know Jumanji and Zathura were related. The film opens with two brothers, Walter (Hutcherson) and Danny (Jonah Bobo), watching as their single dad (Robbins) races off to work after having promised to spend time with them. Their teenage sister, Lisa (Stewart) is aloof and disinterested, falling asleep on the couch.
After refusing to play ball with Danny and treating his little brother like he’s the most annoying creature to walk the earth, Walter turns on the television and drowns out his brother’s pleas. Left to his own devices, Danny wanders the house, exploring and investigating, and eventually finds an old board game called Zathura in the basement. He begins to play and gets a card from the game that warns of an impending meteor shower.
Brotherhood
When a meteor shower actually strikes the house, Danny and Walter realize their house has been launched into space and that the only way to get back to their reality is to finish the game. From here, Zathura is nothing but fun, adventure, and a deeply emotional story about brotherhood. The boys accidentally freeze their sister, attract Zorgons (an evil alien race), and encounter an astronaut (Shepard), all while bickering ferociously.
Available On Netflix
REVIEW SCORE
The film Zathura itself is wonderfully fun, but the way it wraps up is truly beautiful. I don’t want to give anything away, but let me say my kids hugged each other after we watched the movie for the first time, and it will likely make you want to call your siblings after you’re done wiping your eyes. I highly recommend you catch Zathura streaming now that Netflix has added it to the roster.
