R E V I E W
Walter and Danny are two boys who cannot get along with each other or with their older sister Lisa. One day, when their father sets off for work, they quarrel yet again while Lisa is in her bedroom upstairs. Walter has a pair of small walkie-talkies. Danny damages one of them; Walter accuses him again of wrecking everything. Danny gets banished into the house's basement, but discovers a clockwork-driven space-themed board game called Zathura. It is a race game, and the objective is to reach a space location called Zathura. At each turn, one of its two markers moves along or back on its track, and the game issues a card (all of which read primarily by Walter, due to Danny's inability to read). The boys start playing the game. On looking out, one of them sees that it has become night outside, and that the house is no longer on earth but on a small rock floating in space. Some sort of power source is keeping the house supplied with water and gas and electricity, and is holding an envelope of air around it. They soon find that when the game says that something is happening, it happens in reality in or around the house. Also, according to the instructions, the house will not return to Earth until the game is finished. During the course of the story, the boys must overcome their personal ill will toward one another in order to survive. One of these cards says "Shipmate enters cryogenic sleep chamber for 5 turns."; the boys investigating find the house's bathroom frozen to far below freezing point and in it Lisa frozen rigid hard. Another card announces a meteor shower, and the house is destructively bombarded by many small fast-flying objects. Another card drawn says "reprogram"; they see no immediate use for it. Another card says "Your robot is defective.": a robot appears, first as a small wind-up metal toy, but it quickly becomes real and life-size. It is supposed to defend the players, but as it is malfunctioning it misidentifies Walter as an alien life form and begins rampaging through the house to catch him (its line of directive being, "Emergency. Alien lifeform. Must destroy.") Finally it runs into a wall where its arms are trapped. Another card says "Shooting star, make a wish as it passes.": a large bright object rushes past. Walter struggles mentally with himself about what to wish, but finally wishes for an oval football with a famous player's signature on it: it appears, but is of no immediate use.
Editor by Admin Cinema-31
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