Sir Terrence the Terrible
02-23-2006, 10:21 AM
One cannot help but compare Zathura to Jumajii. The director is the same, the author of the story is the same, the premise of the movie is the same, but there is a twist. It is a space adventure. In my opinion this movie is far more accessible and entertaining than Jumanjii.
The story begins with two brothers who compete for everything, including their fathers (Tim Robbins) attention. They argue, fight, and generally disagree about everything. The action really begins when younger brother Danny (Jonah Bobo) finds the board game Zathura in the basement, and invites older brother Walter (Josh Hutcherson) to play. Once they roll the dice, they quickly find that this game has some unusual qualities. Each roll of the dice finds them in a different circumstance. They run into a meteor shower, a malfunctioning robot, a cryogenic bathroom complete with a frozen sister (Kristen Stewart) angry aliens that thrive on heat and a surprise astronaut that turns out to be an older version of Walter. As each adventure passes, the brothers learn to work together to finish the game before their father gets home from a weekend appointment.
The Picture
Sony Pictures Home Entertainment has made ZATHURA available on DVD in a 1.85:1 widescreen presentation that has been enhanced for playback on 16:9 displays. Image quality is generally quite good, with the picture being sharp and nicely defined most of the time. Occasionally, shots appear a little soft, but the picture is never problematic. Colors appear strongly rendered and stable, while the flesh tones are consistently appealing. Blacks are generally solid and deep, whites are stable and the contrast is pretty smooth. Shadow detail is a little variable, but usually quite good. Digital compression artifacts are never a cause for concern. The average bit rate for the picture is around 4.5-5mbps with occasional peaks at around 7mpps
The Sound
ZATHURA comes with a potent 448kbps Dolby Digital 5.1 channel soundtrack that makes good use of all the discrete channels. With tons of chaos and destruction, sound effects are aggressively deployed once the movie hits outer space. Fidelity is very strong, with the sound effects packing a wallop and the musical component having a full-bodied quality. The LFE channel certainly rocks the house, but deep bass can be found in the front and rear channels. Voices are cleanly reproduced and the dialogue maintains complete intelligibility. Occasionally, the shrieking of the film’s young protagonists starts to grate on one’s nerves, but that certainly isn’t a flaw in the soundtrack. A French language track has also been encoded onto the DVD, as have English and French subtitles.
Extras
Director Jon Favreau and co-Producer Peter Billingsley are on hand to provide a running audio commentary. Next up is the featurettes Race to The Black Planet is a twelve-minute look behind-the-scenes featuring interviews with members of the production team. The Right Moves clocks in at fifteen minutes and looks at adapting Chris Van Allsburg’s book to the screen. The Cast is nearly thirteen minutes in length and focuses on the casting process and the actors who got the roles in the movie. Miniatures runs nearly ten minutes and looks at some of the old school special effects that the film relied upon. The World of Chris Van Allsburg is a nearly thirteen minute program that looks at the author/illustrator and his work. Zorgons, Robots and Frozen Lisa highlights Stan Winston’s effects work in this sixteen-minute program. Making The Game spends ten minutes examining the look and design of the actual board game as depicted in the movie
Zathura runs 101 minutes and has closed captioning for the hearing impaired.
This is an all around entertaining movie for the whole family and would be an excellent movie for your collection.
The story begins with two brothers who compete for everything, including their fathers (Tim Robbins) attention. They argue, fight, and generally disagree about everything. The action really begins when younger brother Danny (Jonah Bobo) finds the board game Zathura in the basement, and invites older brother Walter (Josh Hutcherson) to play. Once they roll the dice, they quickly find that this game has some unusual qualities. Each roll of the dice finds them in a different circumstance. They run into a meteor shower, a malfunctioning robot, a cryogenic bathroom complete with a frozen sister (Kristen Stewart) angry aliens that thrive on heat and a surprise astronaut that turns out to be an older version of Walter. As each adventure passes, the brothers learn to work together to finish the game before their father gets home from a weekend appointment.
The Picture
Sony Pictures Home Entertainment has made ZATHURA available on DVD in a 1.85:1 widescreen presentation that has been enhanced for playback on 16:9 displays. Image quality is generally quite good, with the picture being sharp and nicely defined most of the time. Occasionally, shots appear a little soft, but the picture is never problematic. Colors appear strongly rendered and stable, while the flesh tones are consistently appealing. Blacks are generally solid and deep, whites are stable and the contrast is pretty smooth. Shadow detail is a little variable, but usually quite good. Digital compression artifacts are never a cause for concern. The average bit rate for the picture is around 4.5-5mbps with occasional peaks at around 7mpps
The Sound
ZATHURA comes with a potent 448kbps Dolby Digital 5.1 channel soundtrack that makes good use of all the discrete channels. With tons of chaos and destruction, sound effects are aggressively deployed once the movie hits outer space. Fidelity is very strong, with the sound effects packing a wallop and the musical component having a full-bodied quality. The LFE channel certainly rocks the house, but deep bass can be found in the front and rear channels. Voices are cleanly reproduced and the dialogue maintains complete intelligibility. Occasionally, the shrieking of the film’s young protagonists starts to grate on one’s nerves, but that certainly isn’t a flaw in the soundtrack. A French language track has also been encoded onto the DVD, as have English and French subtitles.
Extras
Director Jon Favreau and co-Producer Peter Billingsley are on hand to provide a running audio commentary. Next up is the featurettes Race to The Black Planet is a twelve-minute look behind-the-scenes featuring interviews with members of the production team. The Right Moves clocks in at fifteen minutes and looks at adapting Chris Van Allsburg’s book to the screen. The Cast is nearly thirteen minutes in length and focuses on the casting process and the actors who got the roles in the movie. Miniatures runs nearly ten minutes and looks at some of the old school special effects that the film relied upon. The World of Chris Van Allsburg is a nearly thirteen minute program that looks at the author/illustrator and his work. Zorgons, Robots and Frozen Lisa highlights Stan Winston’s effects work in this sixteen-minute program. Making The Game spends ten minutes examining the look and design of the actual board game as depicted in the movie
Zathura runs 101 minutes and has closed captioning for the hearing impaired.
This is an all around entertaining movie for the whole family and would be an excellent movie for your collection.