In 1995, Sony Pictures released Jumanji, starring Robin Williams, Bonnie Hunt and Kristen Dunst. Directed by Joe Johnston (Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, The Rocketeer), the film was based on the Caldecott Award-winning children’s classic of the same name, written and illustrated by Chris Van Allsburg in 1981. Since its debut, Jumanji has managed to stay alive in the cultural conversation, spawning two Rock-starring sequels (combined worldwide gross: $1.75 billion) and even a recently announced theme park attraction and hotel. But where’s the love for Zathura: A Space Adventure (2005)? Set in the same world as Jumanji, the movie is based on Allsburg’s own followup book from 2000 that moves the magic board game action from a jungle setting into outer space. But ask a random assemblage of nostalgic millennials who remember binge watching the original on VHS or any of the tens of millions worldwide who’ve recently flocked to the sequels if they’ve ever even heard of Zathura, and I bet you’ll get mostly blank looks. Which is a crying shame, because Zathura is a classic family adventure film that deserves much better than the poor critical reception and box office receipts it received at the time.
Straight off his smash hit, Elf (2003), director Jon Favreau stated in press materials that with his next film, his aim was to create a rollicking sci-fi adventure in the vein of Steven Spielberg’s E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982) – a children’s movie with heart and scares and great special effects that could be enjoyed by kids and their parents alike for years to come. It’s fair to say that he succeeded. Zathura bests Jumanji (I haven’t seen either of the sequels) in nearly every way imaginable. Besides Favreau’s obvious facility with camera placement, mise-en-scène, special effects and casting (more on this later), he does this by staying grounded, by trusting his source material and by not attempting to expand a simple story beyond the bonds of what it can comfortably handle.
Van Allsburg’s Jumanji book is incredibly simple. With strong, black-and-white visuals, it tells the story of a brother and sister who find an interesting-looking board game in the park one day and decide to play it at home when their parents are out. With each roll of the dice, the cards they read reveal themselves to have an effect on the world around them. “Lion attacks, move back two spaces,” reads Judy, and suddenly a Lion appears on the piano above Peter’s head. “Monkeys steal food,” and instantly a pack of howlers are ransacking the fridge. And so on, through snakes and volcanoes and a memorable rhino stampede, all culminating in lessons learned, bonds shared and everything reverting back to square one at the end. Johnston’s film version, however, is a bit of a sprawling mess. It creates a half dozen new main characters, involves flashbacks to the 19th century, daddy issues, the expansion of the original house setting from a split-level ranch to a massive mansion (how on earth does it make sense for Bebe Neuwirth’s character to purchase and move into this place with two orphaned kids in tow?), gun battles in the streets, daddy issues, riots, Cronenbergian body horror, improvised rocket-propelled weaponry, daddy issues, a time travel element, and serious daddy issues. Oh, and absolutely atrocious CGI. (And did I mention the daddy issues?)
When Allsburg decided to continue his story with Zathura, he mostly hewed closely to the template set in the original work. This time featuring two bickering brothers, Danny and Walter Budwing, the set pieces have changed from jungle-themed to outer space, but otherwise things are mostly the same, to the book’s slight detriment. He doesn’t add much to the previous volume other than a lesson about sibling rivalry, but the artwork is stunning and the adventure elements are well-paced and exciting. When Favreau and his collaborators took on the task of adapting the book for the big screen, they managed to eschew nearly all of the problems with Johnston’s Jumanji adaptation. They kept the story simple, adding only the bare minimum to the plot in order to justify the film’s running time. Wisely deciding to keep the action confined to the boys’ home, the choice of location for this picture was vitally important. The exteriors were filmed on location at a beautiful Craftsman-style home in South Pasadena, California, while the interiors were entirely constructed on a soundstage (portions of which were set on large-scale gimbals that shook and even rotated the sets, allowing the actors to really feel like their home was about to be swallowed up by a black hole or be obliterated by alien missiles). As the lovingly-created sets are even more lovingly destroyed over the course of the film, the viewer is grateful that Favreau and his crew spent such obviously detailed care and effort in imagining the perfect environment in which to zoom off into space and get wacked by marauding bands of lizard-men. Every splintering beam and solidly exploding door frame only adds to the spirited fun.
There are two main elements that help to elevate Zathura above the run-of-the-mill family sci-fi adventure flick: the cast and the special effects. The casting is spot on, especially in the two child leads. Jonah Bobo plays six-and-three-quarters-year-old Danny (he’s at that age where that three-fourths really matters – he’s cute as a button, precocious, but not obnoxiously so, clever, but also annoying as only a little brother can be), and Josh Hutcherson ably portrays his older brother, 10-year-old Walter (he’d rather be watching Sports Center than SpongeBob, and he’s way over sharing his toys with his little bro, but he’s brave in a clutch and loyal where it counts). The terrific screenplay by David Koepp and John Kamps gives the kids some surprisingly realistic dialogue to work with, but it’s the young actors’ chops that really puts their performances over. They manage to seem like a real pair of brothers who love each other but are also tired of each other’s nonsense and who both pine for attention from their recently divorced dad, played by Tim Robbins (did somebody say daddy issues?). Their performances make the audience care not only about their survival, but also about their emotional growth and reconnection over the course of the film.
Speaking of Robbins, his harried father figure character only appears during the first ten or so minutes of the movie, but his presence colors the rest of what’s to come. He immediately elevates the material, grounding the story in a realistic portrayal of interfamilial dynamics. Two other actors round out the cast: one is Dax Shepard, best known at that point as the guy from MTV’s Punk’d (and best known since as Kristen Bell’s husband), is surprisingly terrific as The Astronaut, a player from the game that comes to life to help the boys survive. The other, Kristen Stewart, fresh off her appearances in several well-regarded indies, but far from reaching the level of acclaim she’s since achieved, is perfectly cast as the boy’s surly older sister. She’s absent for much of the action due to the fact that a) she’s a surly teen, and surly teens sleep late and spend lots of time in the bathroom, and b) she gets cryogenically frozen for a couple of rounds of the game. This last bit of business employs one of the film’s best special effects, an eerily-accurate, life-sized, “frozen” statue of Stewart created by the famed Stan Winston Studio effects team.
And speaking of special effects, man, does Zathura ever hold up. For a 17-year-old film, it looks like it could have been made last week. This is because Favreau wisely chose to stick to mostly practical effects. When the giant robot careens through the house, smashing tables and breaking through doors, it is really a giant robot (well, at least a guy in a giant robot suit), running and smashing and knocking things over that you are seeing on film. When something explodes, they really blow it up; when it seems like the room is tilting due to increased gravity, it’s really tilting, when the giant lizards attack, it’s again, a guy in a suit and not a bunch of pixels. Where CGI elements are needed, they are tastefully and seamlessly incorporated into the show. (Some of the shots of planets and black holes, etc., are simply breathtaking – I can still remember the gasps in the theater when I saw this in ‘05.) When you are looking at the house from afar getting wrecked by alien ships, you’re really seeing a hugely detailed model get all torn up. Mention should be made, too, of the delightfully retro production design, with the game board itself, the alien ships and the robots all adhering to a 50s sci-fi, Buck Rogers aesthetic that works wonderfully with the otherwise grounded, old-school Hollywood approach to storytelling by Favreau and Co.
I’d bet dollars to donuts that it was Zathura that gave Marvel Studios the confidence that the dude from Swingers could handle launching the MCU. It’s clear from the picture (along with Elf, actually) that Favreau knows how to place a camera and handle complex special effects. More importantly, he knows how to do all that while telling a compelling story through largely visual means, creating a lively and interesting series of frames optimally cut together for clarity and impact; and most importantly, that he knows how to hire the right actors for the job, directing them to bring forth their best work, as well as a larger team of talented, creative folks in the crew who can practice their craft under his steady hand and guiding vision.
It baffles me how some films become lost to time. Either they come at the wrong time to jibe with the era’s sensibilities or else they just don’t fit with what the market wants, there will always be some worthy movies that slip through the cracks of the critical and commercial consensus of the day. Zathura is one of those movies. But it doesn’t need to be. It is currently streaming all sorts of places (although I highly recommend tracking down the blu-ray for all the behind-the-scenes goodness), so if you have a child, if you are a child, or if you ever were a child, give Zathura a chance. It’s fun, it’s funny, it’s exciting, and it blows Jumanji right out of orbit.
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