Horror in the 90's Jacob's Ladder

Jacob's Ladder (1990) 

Directed by Adrian Lyne 

Written by Bruce Joel Rubin

Starring Tim Robbins, Elizabeth Pena, Danny Aiello

Release Date November 2nd, 1990 

Box Office $26.9 million 

Director Adrian Lyne is known best for his sexy, sweat-soaked thrillers about cheating husbands, scheming women, and rich guys who pay for sex. So, seeing that he's also the director of a gritty, Vietnam era horror movie like Jacob's Ladder is a little jarring. Now, of course, he does throw in needless nudity, Elizabeth Pena's breasts are lovingly captured on screen for no particularly good story reason, but otherwise, Jacob's Ladder is a grand departure for the tawdry director of admittedly zeitgeist grabbing sex thrillers. 

Jacob's Ladder tells the story of a deeply haunted Vietnam vet named Jacob, played by Tim Robbins. Jacob nearly died in Vietnam after his unit was the subject of a violent surprise attack. Jacob himself was stabbed in the gut and had to have his intestines pressed back into his body before he could be taken back to the base hospital. Jake remembers being gutted by a bayonet but he also has another memory that he cannot quite reconcile. Just prior to his being stabbed, Jacob's unit seemed to be having severe hallucinations and overdoses. 

Is it a dream or a memory? Jacob cannot tell. However, when Jacob survives a pair of attempts on his life and compares notes with some of the members of his unit, it appears that there may indeed have been more to this firefight than a surprise attack. Meanwhile, Jacob isn't sleeping, he's in desperate pain from a back injury. Thankfully he has a benevolent chiropractor named Louie (Danny Aiello) who acts as friend, confessor, therapist and guardian angel. Louis is seemingly the only one able to comfort the ever-tormented Jacob. 

On top of his traumatic near death in Vietnam, Jacob lost a son before the war. Gabriel (Macauley Culkin), was struck and killed while riding his bike. Jacob's life has been a mess ever since. Despite having two other children, Jacob fell apart, his marriage to his wife, Sarah (Patricia Kalember) fell apart and then Jacob nearly died. It's no wonder that he can barely function and gave up life as a Park Avenue Shrink for a relatively more peaceful and less stressful job as a postal worker. Boomers and Gen-X'ers are making dark jokes right now, millennials are a bit confounded and thinking yes, being a postal worker would be less stressful.  Both sides are right. 

Anyway, that's Jacob's Ladder. Jacob barely functions, survives a few attempts on his life, has a couple more near-death experiences and begins seeing demons. He has meltdowns at any function he attends, when he's not sick he's obsessed with his time in Vietnam. He's slowly destroying his relationship with his girlfriend, Jezzie (Elizabeth Pena), while she may have a secret related to what is happening to Jacob. What is real and what is a hallucination begins to intermingle into a confusing mélange of disconnected horror images that all mean nothing when the ending is revealed. 

Find my full length review at Horror.Media 

Movie Review: Cadillac Man

Cadillac Man (1990) 

Directed by Roger Donaldson 

Written by Ken Friedman

Starring Robin Williams, Tim Robbins, Paul Guilfoyle, Annabella Sciorra

Release Date May 18th, 1990

Published May 18th 2020

“Movies are machines that generate empathy” Roger Ebert 

My favorite theme in a movie is compassion. Watching genuine compassion from a character in a movie almost always gets to me. Cadillac Man was not a movie I expected to have compassion as a theme. On the surface, Cadillac Man is about a supremely selfish, self-involved car salesman who is taken hostage and has to use his ability to lie, cheat and steal to get himself out the jam. 

That’s just the surface, in the performance of Robin Williams as Joey, we have a desperately soul-sick man whose shallowness is beginning to wear away his will to live. He doesn’t want to die, he doesn’t even want to change too much, but Williams in his sweaty, sleezy, gesticulating performance, communicates Joey’s emotional emptiness and the desire he has to be better, even if he doesn’t realize it yet. 

Joey’s about to be forced to have the realization that he wants to be better in a highly stressful and dangerous way. As he’s desperately trying to sell cars to save his soul-sucking job, Joey winds up in the middle of a hostage situation. Into the scene comes Larry (Tim Robbins), the crazed husband of one of Joey’s co-workers, Donna (Annabella Sciorra). Donna’s been sleeping with the boss’s son, Little Jack (Paul Guilfoyle) and Larry has come to the dealership with an automatic weapon to exact revenge. 

Again, that’s the surface of the situation. Yes, Donna is cheating with the boss’s son, but Larry doesn’t really have a plan for revenge. He has the gun and what he claims are plastic explosives, but in reality, he’s the same kind of sad sack, lost soul that Joey is, only not nearly as self aware, intelligent, or brazen. Larry is like a lost child who just needs someone to care about him a little and Joey is a man who knows how to read people, sizes him up right away. 

Sensing that he can get everyone out safely, Joey turns to his skill as a salesman and sets about calming Larry down, serving his emotional needs, and almost instinctively, the goodness in Joey becomes the driving force of what comes next. For the next hour, Joey sets about becoming Larry’s friend, soothing his ego, nursing him and along the way, Joey transforms from a desperate man trying to save himself to a genuine person, who wants nothing more than to save everyone. 

That’s never on the surface of Cadillac Man. You get all of that just from Robin Williams’ incredible performance. The turn that Joey makes from self-obsessed con-artist to Larry’s friend and the protector of everyone in the car dealership happens steadily over the length of the midpoint of the movie, and through the final act. It begins as an act of a desperate man and becomes genuine compassion and empathy from one desperate, sad, man to another. 

All while this is happening director Roger Donaldson keeps up a relentless pace. Cadillac Man rarely lets up on the pace. The dialogue, the plot, the scenes, move with great quickness. Even before Larry arrives, about 40 minutes into the movie, he makes an early cameo but Robbins doesn’t arrive fully until the midpoint, the story sets the table incredibly well by introducing the competing ways in which Joey has dug himself into a seemingly inescapable hole of his own careless and callow creation. 

The opening act, with a motormouthed Joey talking directly to the camera before getting to work, allows Williams to be dynamic and of the kind of Robin Williams we know. As the act progresses though, and the walls start to crumble around Joey and this empty, selfish place he's created for himself, the film begins to take shape. Larry then enters in full chaos and shakes the foundations of the movie. Joey's resolve to keep his various lies in place begins fall down and as we watch the man reborn into a place where he is a genuine person it's fascinating to watch. 

Williams acts the role of Joey with his entire body. The sweaty energy that Williams brings to his broad stand up comedy here is inverted into drama as the quick wit searches for real answers instead of punchlines and pathos in instead of laughing payoffs. It's really rather extraordinary and unlike any other Robin Williams performance. Williams takes an empty suited, selfish, borderline villainous character, breaks him down to pieces and rebuilds him before our eyes without ever letting up on the pace of the story being told. 

Cadillac Man is desperately underrated and cruelly forgotten by time. Williams, known for his broad comedic roles, has a legend that overshadows his often brilliant dramatic work. That's why I wrote this review, I want to get people to see what I think is arguably the best Robin Williams performance. The one least seen by the masses and one that can work to remind people just how brilliant Robin Williams could be in just about any role. 

Cadillac Man is maybe my favorite movie of 1990. 

Movie Review: Catch a Fire

Catch a Fire (2006) 

Directed by Phillip Noyce

Written by Phillip Noyce 

Starring Derek Luke, Tim Robbins, Bonnie Henna

Release Date October 27th, 2006

Published October 27th, 2006

The life of Patrick Chamusso is interesting and dramatic but no more so than other African men who joined the fight against Apartheid. So why is the life story of Patrick Chamusso now being told in the action drama Catch A Fire? Writer-director Phillip Noyce has no answer for that in terms of why Patrick Chamusso appealed to him in particular.

However, elements of Patrick's life do lend themselves to a particular political point that Noyce wants to make about the current war on terror. Thus, the life story of Patrick Chamusso is basically a coat hanger for an over-arching metaphor about our current state of geo-political affairs. Whether you agree with Noyce, as I do, you can't help but feel overwhelmed by the hammer like; lack of subtelty in Catch A Fire and the way Patrick Chamusso's story is abused for a political purpose.

Derek Luke stars in Catch A Fire as Patrick Chamusso a responsible family man who has managed to find a strong measure of success in the white dominated world of South Africa. Working in management at an oil refinery Patrick has a nice home, two beautiful children and his wife Precious (Bonnie Mbulli) is a former beauty queen.

So how did Patrick Chamusso go on from a man who fit so well in the rigid Boer dominated society of South Africa to become a revolutionary in the African National Congress, training to become a soldier in the war against Apartheid?

Late one night the refinery is bombed by the ANC. Patrick and two of his closest friends are arrested for the crime. Patrick has an alibi, he was visitiing his son by a different mother; an indiscretion he refuses to admit so that his wife will not find out. This leads to Patrick being tortured for weeks on end by a team of government security officers under the direction of Nic Vos (Tim Robbins).

After Patrick's wife is subjected to torture as well, Patrick confesses to the crime he did not commit. His confession however, is disregarded by Vos who decides he was not guilty afterall and let's him go. With his family in shambles and his pride damaged by being unable to protect his wife, Patrick feels he has no other option but to fight back against the white establishment that attacked him without reason.

The point that Phillip Noyce wants to make here is that sometimes terrorists aren't born, they're made. This same point has been made by talking heads all over world in relation to the American invasion of Iraq. Men who feel their country or family is under attack have gone from businessmen running a fruit stand to an enemy combatant willing to give his life to stop the American invaders.

Consider the photos that came from Abu Ghraib prison. Now imagine the average Iraqi citizen seeing how fellow Iraqis are treated and deciding to fight against America. How about the victims of America's so called Shock and Awe campaign that began the war in Iraq. Though American bombs were as accurate as they could possibly be, many went off course and killed Iraqi citizens, more than enough reasoning for a relative or friend to decide they will fight against America.

Consider those things and consider that outside of their metaphorical significance, none of these things have anything but  a tenuous connection to the life of Patrick Chamusso. When thinking of the life of Patrick Chamusso you can see cinematic elements but nothing more cinematic than the life of any number of A.N.C members who gave their life to fighting apartheid.

Telling Patrick Chamusso's story is simply not the point of Catch A Fire.

Derek Luke gives a credible dramatic life to the role of Patrick Chamusso. Unlike director Noyce, for whom Chamusso is just a useful tool, Luke respects the story of Patrick and takes care in bringing it to life. Unfortunately for Luke, Chamusso is a pawn in this plot. There is little dramatic arc here. Patrick Chamusso's life turned on the decision to fight back against the government that wronged him. Had the government not tortured his wife he likely would never have become militant, never would have fought back.

Is what Phillip Noyce does with the story of Patrick Chamusso so wrong? No. What happened to Patrick Chamusso provides a strong metaphorical correlation to the story of any number of Iraqis who became militant in the face of invading Americans that they felt were not liberators but were in fact attacking them, their family's and their way of life. (If you want an essay on the good of the Iraq invasion, write it yourself).

What bothers me about Catch A Fire is the lack of any subtlety in making this metaphorical point. Somewhere along the line someone genuinely wanted to tell the story of Patrick Chamusso and Phillip Noyce came along and decided to use that story for his own purposes.

Noyce's intentions are not stated overtly onscreen except in the casting of noted war protestor Tim Robbins. Now, Robbins does deliver a very strong performance in Catch A Fire. However, his presence is yet another signalling of the overarching metaphor. Robbins himself has in past interviews made the point about how the invasion of Iraq has created as many enemies as it's killed, now in Catch A Fire he has given a dramatic presentation of that point using the life of Patrick Chamusso as a tool.

Before my conservative readers get the wrong impression about Robbins role in Catch A Fire;  take note. Robbins' Nick Vos is no simple villain, nor is his villainy a representation of American soldiers, interrogators or even politicians. Robbins' character is very conflicted about the actions he feels he is forced to take in order to ensure the status quo in South Africa. Vos honestly believed what he was doing was the right thing and that he was just following orders when he engaged in torturing men he believed were terrorists.

Catch A Fire is a well made political drama about a good man who goes beyond himself to right the wrong of Apartheid and to get some measure of revenge for the ills caused to his family. That his story is abused by director Phillip Noyce to make a tortured metaphoric point about his and others opposition to the war in Iraq is not a reflection on how interesting or uninteresting, worthy or unworthy, Patrick Chamusso's life story is.

Phillip Noyce had a point he wanted to make and he used the life of Patrick Chamusso to make it. I wish he might have brought a little more nuance or subtlety to the evocation of this metaphor but that didn't happen. Thus like repeated hammer blows, the point of Catch A Fire is made over and over until the story of Patrick Chamusso is just background noise.

Movie Review Green Lantern

Green Lantern (2011) 

Directed by Martin Campbell

Written by Craig Berlanti, Michael Green, Marc Guggenheim, Michael Goldenberg

Starring Ryan Reynolds, Blake Lively, Peter Sarsgard, Mark Strong, Angela Bassett, Tim Robbins

Release Date June 17th, 2011 

Published June 16th, 2011 

"Green Lantern" is the latest superhero story to hit the big screen following the spring adventures of "Thor" and the summer spectacular that was "X-Men: The First Class." "Green Lantern" however, is the first of these superhero flicks to feature a big star as the big hero. Ryan Reynolds, long on the road to superstar status, plays the heroic Green Lantern and while the casting is alright there was little any star could have done to improve the rather limp story.

Hal Jordan, Our Hero

Hal Jordan is a bed-hopping, test-pilot with serious daddy issues. So serious, in fact, are Hal's unresolved issues with his late father, that he nearly crashes his plane as he distractedly recalls his dad's death. Naturally, Hal comes through the crisis alright but not without angering his best friend, and would be love of his life, Carol Ferris (Blake Lively.)

Putting aside Hal's daddy and romantic issues, he is a special guy and we know this because a purple alien guardian from another world carrying a very powerful green ring and a green lantern tells us so. Of the billions of people on earth Hal Jordan has been chosen as humanity's protector, the newest member of the universal force known as the Green Lantern Corp.

The Green Lantern Corp

Soon, Hal has a special suit and mask that are made from -- well we aren't quite sure what. The suit seems to generate directly from Hal's own skin and the fewer questions asked about the suit's (ahem) functionality (?) the better. Through his alien ring and lantern Hal can now create anything he wants using only his mind.

If we go with Hal to his training on a distant planet we are just asking for this plot description to grow far too unwieldy and since the plot isn't great to begin with let's just leave it at special voice appearances by Geoffrey Rush, Michael Clark Duncan and go to bad guy Mark Strong as sort of a good guy.

Peter Sarsgard is creepy

Back on earth Hal will have to defend humanity against a former colleague and friend, Dr. Hector Hammond (Peter Sarsgard) who has contracted an alien infection that somehow managed to make him even creepier than the massively foreheaded, dweeby, community college professor he already was.

There is also a good deal of nonsense related to a giant monster cloud of what I believe is fear energy combined with some all powerful alien creature. Honestly, I stopped caring so early on in "Green Lantern" that I tuned out whatever wasn't Ryan Reynolds being cute and Blake Lively flashing her beautiful, "Gossip Girl" half smile; truly is there a woman in the world who is so attractively bemused?

Fanboys Only

"Green Lantern" was directed by Martin Campbell who is an immensely talented director. Here, however, Campbell hits the wall with far too much fanboy nonsense and not nearly enough stuff that's interesting to people who aren't in fealty to the D.C Comics legend. I assume, because I am not familiar with the comic, that much of the stuff I found goofy and nonsensical was some kind of homage or nod to the faithful? How else do you explain it?

The thing about a great superhero movie like "Batman Begins" and "The Dark Knight" or "Spiderman 1 & 2" or the "Iron Man" movies is they were good movies first and comic book movies second. The best of the genre add the fan touches on the sides in the periphery. "Green Lantern," like "Thor," places the comic book stuff first and in doing so leaves the non-comic fan distracted and waiting for the actual story to kick in.

Not Recommended for General Audiences

When the story never really kicks in it only serves to magnify why the filmmakers included all of the comic book stuff, they didn't have enough of a compelling original story to push the fanboy stuff to the sides. I liked Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively and the voice of Geoffrey Rush, as some kind of muscled up alien fish, but in the end that is not enough for me to recommend "Green Lantern" to a general audience.

Now, if you are a fan of the comic book Green Lantern, I do recommend the movie. You are going to get it on another level. You will enjoy the stuff I found goofy and or needless. You will get the stuff that I found distracting. You, Green Lantern fan, may just really enjoy this movie and bully for you. Enjoy.

Movie Review: The Truth About Charlie

The Truth About Charlie (2002) 

Directed by Jonathan Demme

Written by Jonathan Demme

Starring Mark Wahlberg, Thandie Newton, Tim Robbins, Ted Levine

Release Date October 25th, 2002 

Published October 24th, 2002 

There are many signs of a troubled production. Media rumors of on set strife. Inflated egos inflating budgets. And the ever present internet reviews of scripts and rough cuts, either intentionally leaked or stolen. Maybe the most quiet but telling portent of trouble is the shift of release dates. In most cases once completed a film is immediately put on the schedule. However if the studio releasing the film see’s something they don’t like, they delay the release and do what they can to hide and fix the problems.

Such was the case with The Truth About Charlie. A search of Upcomingmovies.com reveals a number of release dates and that the film was completed over a year ago. What is unclear after viewing the film is what was so bad about it that the studio so unceremoniously dumped it into release with so little fan fare. It’s not that bad.

Charlie stars Thandie Newton as a newlywed of three months who returns from a vacation, taken without her new hubby, to find her apartment and bank accounts empty. Her character, Regina, is informed that her husband Charlie has been killed while on a train ride to, well, no one is quite sure where he was going. Regina had thought Charlie was an art dealer but after the cops show her a number of different passports all belonging to the man she assumed was just her husband she is forced to re-evaluate everything she thought she knew. 

In the meantime she finds herself pursued by people from Charlie’s past who are searching for 6 million dollars Charlie stole from them. Regina, however, has no idea where it is. Throw into the mix an American named Joshua Peters (Mark Wahlberg) who just keeps popping up whenever she’s in trouble. Also throw in an American spy played by Tim Robbins as yet another character with questionable motives.

Based on the 1963 Grant-Hepburn movie Charade, The Truth About Charlie is a classic superfluous spy movie. A love story adventure where characters change sides at a moments notice and motivations change just as quick. Director Jonathan Demme’s sure-handed direction steadies what could have been a confusing and tiresome story. The film clicks along at a quick pace knowing that if it slows down too much, it’s paper thin story will unravel.

The only problem I could sense about the film is Mark Wahlberg as Joshua. Wahlberg seems to be sleepwalking through the role and never generates any palpable chemistry with co-star Thandie Newton. Newton on the other hand is sensational. Though Wahlberg gets top billing for box office purposes, this is clearly Newton’s movie. Give her a co-star who could project the charm and danger projected by Cary Grant in the original version and you might have quite a good film.

In the end unfortunately,`1 The Truth About Charlie is a thin but watchable Saturday night rental. The kind of film you can watch and immediately forget. See it for Newton who get’s more beautiful everytime she’s onscreen.

Movie Review: City of Ember

City of Ember (2008) 

Directed by Gil Kenan 

Written by Caroline Thompson 

Starring Saorise Ronan, Harry Treadaway, Bill Murray, Tim Robbins, Martin Landau, Toby Jones 

Release Date October 10th, 2008 

Published October 9th, 2008

With humanity forced underground, two teens try to figure out why and how they can escape. She is Lina Mayfleet (Saorise Ronan). He is Doone Harrow (Harry Treadaway). Though they weren't aware of it, Lina and Doone's parents were close friends. In fact, they were part of a secret society that were the first to try to escape from Ember. Lina and Doone have the advantage of a map handed down by the builders, the scientists who created the underground city as their own society was crushed by some unseen force, either environmental or nuclear. 

The buliders created the map and instructions for leaving Ember and locked them in a time sealed box incapable of being opened for 200 years. The box was supposed to be passed from one mayor of Ember to the next but at some point it was lost along with the instructions for reclaiming the earth's surface. Lina finds the box in a closet in her grandmothers home. She takes it to her pal Doone and together they follow the instructions leading to an extraordinary adventure.

City of Ember was produced by the folks at Walden Media whose abundance of religious metaphors can be a little ham fisted. Here the Builders stand in for a belief in a higher power. They are even thought by the truly faithful to be returning someday. The metaphor is obvious and overblown but the director, Gil Kenan, is smart not to get bogged down in the overt demonstration. Using his exceptional cast, especially Bill Murray as the town's bumbling, inept mayor, Kenan never lets things get bogged down by metaphor. He also makes great use of action, especially near the end where a boat trip mimics Indiana Jones Temple of Doom coal chute chase.

Saorise Ronan is a lovely young actress whose big eyes never portray anything but earnest commitment to purpose. Her Lina wasn't looking to leave Ember, she in fact had just received the job of her dreams as red cape wearing messenger, a job that allows her to indulge her quick feet. However, with the town experiencing growing blackouts and food shortages, it becomes her mission to not merely save herself but the community of Ember that is her surrogate family. Doone's interest wasn't leaving either, he was compelled by something to believe he could fix the generator.

When he is assigned to work as pipefitter he hopes to use it's proximity to the great generator to get in there and solve the problem. Doone's arc goes from fearful and frantic to realistic and hopeful. When confronted with evidence of a world outside of Ember Doone abandons his grandiose plans for a more arduous journey with what he hopes greater results. Doone and Lina spark well together and their entirely chaste romance, expressed only in brief hand holding, is charming in an old school, kids movie kind of way. I like movies that manage to entertain while acting their age and that is what City of Ember does.

Gil Kenan knows he is making this movie for young children and avoids any humor or violence that might overwhelm the target audience. It sounds as if he is censoring himself but the film remains entertaining which demonstrates Kenan's talent, he doesn't need to be simpleminded or vulgar to achieve the film he wants to make.

City of Ember has it's flaws but in the end what mattered was my smile. I started smiling the moment Saorise Ronan came onscreen, arriving late at school with an important assembly already underway and she needing to be on stage, till the end. Kids movies that don't condescend or speak down to kids are in too short supply. City of Ember deserves your movie dollar for simply being that kind of thoughtful kids flick. Saorise Ronan is a young star in the making and I can't wait to see what she does next. Here's hoping it's as smart and fun as City of Ember.

Movie Review: Zathura

Zathura (2005) 

Directed by Jon Favreau 

Written by David Koepp, John Kamps

Starring Josh Hutcherson, Jonah Bobo, Dax Shepard, Kristen Stewart, Tim Robbins 

Release Date November 11th, 2005 

Published November 10th, 2005

It is one thing for Hollywood studios to slap together big, dumb, loud blockbusters for teens and adults. But when they extend that brainless genre to kids that is where we as an audience must draw the line. The new kid targeted adventure flick Zathura is a rarity for its kind: a big, dumb, loud action movie aimed at the pre-teen market.

Two bratty brothers, Walter (Josh Hutcherson) and Danny (Jonah Bobo), bicker and annoy one another until Danny discovers a unique board game in the basement of their dad's (Tim Robbins) house. The game, Zathura, is a 50's era space adventure, a metal gears and paint concoction that was likely the X-Box of it's time.

Danny the younger brother wants to play but older brother Walter just wants to watch Sportscenter. When Danny turns the key and presses a button to start the game Walter finds he will have to play whether he likes it or not. The game has shot the boys into space and the only way to get home is to finish the game before the various meteor showers, robot malfunctions, or bloodthirsty aliens finish them.

Along for the ride is the boys' sister, Lisa (Kristen Stewart), who was supposed to keep them out of trouble but because of the game, she now finds herself frozen in cryo-sleep, as one of the game cards helpfully explains. Also joining the boys for this adventure is an astronaut (Dax Shepard) who was lost in space some 15 years ago after he and his brother had played the game.

Directed by Jon Favreau, Zathura is a surprisingly bombastic and ridiculous exercise in over modulated special effects and a complete lack of subtlety. The light touch that Favreau brought to his last kiddie flick, the very funny Elf, has been replaced in Zathura by a sledgehammer, hammering into place a pair of unlikable, often nasty, child characters into a predictable plot that is desperately padded to reach a feature length run time.

Zathura was adapted by David Koepp from a short illustrated novel by Chris Van Allsburg. The padding is necessary because Van Allsburg's book is a far from feature length at a mere 32 pages. Many of those pages are filled only with Van Allsburg's lovely charcoal drawings. That does illustrate the challenge that Jon Favreau and David Koepp faced in this adaptation but it does not excuse the choice to make the characters insufferable little brats who push the plot forward with the worst decisions imaginable all while the entire movie shrieks and rumbles like a sugared up kindergarten class. 

The special effects in Zathura are the film's strong point. Jon Favreau creates a terrifically cartoonish outer space that is perfectly in line with a child's imagination. The robots and aliens are cool looking, with the robot also providing the films few moments of genuine laughter. If I have any issue with the aliens it's that they may be a little too scary for the young audience that is being sought after by Zathura.

Unfortunately, the weak points of Zathura are a group of unlikable, unendurable characters. The brothers bicker constantly and meanly and when they aren't bickering with each other they are bickering with their dad played by Tim Robbins in a forgettable cameo or they are bickering with their even less enjoyable sister played by Kristen Stewart. Are kids, especially young brothers, often at each other's throats? Yeah, maybe. Does that make me want to watch a movie about them being at each others throat's? No, especially when the film is supposed to be a fun filled space adventure.

The game plot of Zathura is a direct lift from Jumanji and that is not surprising as both are based on books by Chris Van Allsburg. The books were, in fact, sequels though in the movie there is no recognition of one to the other aside from essentially similar plots.  Where Jumanji succeeds and Zathura fails is in creating characters we like and enjoy spending time with. Robin Williams may have his moments of being cloying and pandering but he can always pull out a big joke here and there and when he's on he is one of the funniest actors in the business. Jumanji only has a few moments of the best of Robin Williams but I will take those few moments over just about anything in the laughless Zathura.

Where is the wonder of a trip to space? Where is the excitement of adventure? In Zathura we have nothing but kids running from loud explosions in between bursts of ugly brotherly spats. Couldn't we have just one scene where the kids enjoy the magic of space? I realize the astronaut has long since been replaced by the sports or TV celebrity in the imaginations of children but come on, space is space and what kid couldn't find being in outer space more important than fighting with their sibling?

Zathura is a frustrating 84 minutes of big, dumb, loud action, special effects and sibling rivalry. Most frustrating, however, is the missed potential of such an interesting plot and such an interesting director. Jon Favreau has the potential to be a very good director if he can develop his characters better than he does in Zathura. He has the right ideas in there but the wrong approach and thus Zathura is a less than stellar effort. Safe for kids between 10 and 13 who enjoy loud noises and big bright explosions Zathura certainly has an audience but it's an audience that would be better served with more attention to character than to how loud you can crank the volume before the speakers blow.