Reviews

I guess it's not fair to call this a rip off, since Jumanji is a Van Alsburg book, but the similarities are so much that Zathura has that against it from the get go. The effects, substance and acting are adequate but that isn't what's wrong here. It's that the concept was already done, and this movie really doesn't add anything to it. The ending is terribly predictable if you've seen or read jumanji, and the "twist" is fairly obvious given Jumanji as well.

Kids, seeing as though they don't care about fresh plots, will like this film. It's not slow, it's got plenty of eye candy. It's not dull, it's easy to identify with, and there isn't much complexity.

Adults, well, it's not as bad as many alternatives, but you won't be enthused. There is nothing to interest you, save maybe the very beginning when we begin to establish the sibling rivalry.

6/10, see Chicken Little first

I can safely say I don't know why, how or where I get off recommending this, but I highly do so. It's a really good movie, very unlike most anything else. I won't get into the plot because, when I read the back it deterred me from wanting to see the movie. Given the competition I went ahead and I'm glad I did. It's a unique movie that is a definite 2 thumbs up. Worth the rental. The acting is very well done, it didn't take me long to suspend disbelief and get sucked into the storyline. There was a brief period of "is this going anywhere" feeling. (If you aren't familiar with this feeling watch Eye of the Beholder, that's pretty much the feeling you have the whole movie) but that passes quickly as the movie gets into gear. Then ending is unique, I can't quite say that I saw it coming, and that is almost always the highest compliment I can pay to a movie.

This movie is very underwhelming and predictable but the premise is slightly different than most so it's not a complete waste. I originally got it for my son as I was under the impression that this would appeal to kids. In fact not so, my son went back to his room within 20 minutes of having it on.

Jim Carey does a great job. His character is dark and over the top as the roll calls for. The kids also do a good job, they all play their characters well and the baby is very cute. The rest do fine, and the acting isn't the problem.

It's the story, it is predictable beyond belief. Once you see where the story is going it's so straightforward that if you tried to write it, you probably wouldn't be far off what the author did. For anyone who thinks that's a given for kids films/books, give Harry Potter a try.

This movie should go down as one of the funniest movies in history. Its cousins A mighty wind, Spinal Tap and Waiting for Guffman are terrific in their own right but Best in Show takes the cake.

A movie about the idiosyncrasies of dog owners that show their dogs competitively, it's the intricacies of the characters that make it so good. After watching the movie about 75 times I have come to the conclusion that there is no weak character or actor in this film. There is very little interaction between any of the "groups" of characters but that only seems to add to the beauty of the film.

If you watch this movie and don't find it as funny as I am billing it as, watch it again. The first time I saw it I thought it was serviceable but not overly hilarious. It is a film that grows on you. Defininatly a movie that you will find yourself quoting frequently.

Characters: Hamilton and Meg Swan: A+ if you get the DVD check out how these characters were "born" amazing that these two could hit it so on the head. And to find out that they really didn't go by a script and sort of made it up as they went.

Gerry and Cookie Guggleman: A Cookie is especially funny and she does a fantastic job of selling the Cookie character. Gerry (Eugene Levy) delivers his standard stellar performance of the hilarious discombobulated type weaker half.

Stefan Vanderhoof and Scott Donalan- A+ Find me a funnier character than Scott Donalan, I DARE YOU! He will forever be typecast as this character to me as he was so natural and didn't seem forced at any point. Stefan (Micheal McKean) was very good as well and they interplay here (and a brief appearance with the Gugglemans) goes to show why he is always in these films. A great actor with razor like wit.

Harlan Pepper- B+, I don't want it to seem like he isn't funny, he sure is but being the only "Solo" act he can't be quite as funny as the others above. He does use the dog more than others and has some other idiosyncrasies going for him.

The rest are all great as well, there is no weak character. See this film at least twice. Buy it, you will not regret it.

Goes from zero to garbage in a world record 2 microseconds. 80% is in Wookie with no subtitles, not to worry however as the actors make up for the language with over the top body language. This is the story of Chewbacca's trip home for life day. He's late, everyone gets scared and they bring in all the stars for a brief cameo in their search for Chewie. As much as I love Star Wars this is the worst pile of crap ever. By 10 minutes in I was looking up Darth Vader's phone number to turn these losers in. If he would have came and hacked them to bits it would have made the story 1000 times better. I can't imagine actually watching this through the whole way, I mean it's mind numbingly bad. I knew it was supposed to be bad but I thought it might be funny bad. No. It isn't. If bad was a human or animal and could defecate it's effluence would be this show. Don't give in to the dark side, don't watch this.

This was my second run at Oriental horror films and unlike the first try (some movie about spirals) I actually enjoyed this one. I have a hard time trusting anyone who says they knew the ending, it was pretty well disguised through most of the movie. In addition it was a unique blend of video game and movie. Things going against it were the colors and the fast-forward thing that both of the Japanese horror movies have had. I would highly recommend subtitles over the dubbed in English as the subtitles seem to make more sense and the dubbing gives the movie an undesired godzilla effect. A little on the artsy side but definitely accomplishes good suspense. 8/10 for an enjoyable time watching the movie.

I am beside myself that I paid 3 dollars to watch this movie. This has to be one of the worst movies ever. It manages to pull off the triple entant of being stupid, confusing and boring ALL AT THE SAME TIME! I sat for 25 minutes wondering what was happening then I realized it was SO straightforward that I was looking too hard. Then nothing. This movie might not even be worthy of MST3K fodder, it's so painfully bad. This is the black hole of movies, it is so bad that it's not even fun to make fun of how bad it is. If you find yourself reading this you may have watched the film. If this is the case welcome to the "I watched the crappiest movie on the planet" club. If you are thinking of watching it, do not pass go DO NOT RENT THIS MOVIE!!!!!!!!!

I have been an aficionado of many different cult films and strange movies but this one just stinks. It's a great premise actually, and maybe the book was good but the movie is just a mishmash of story lines not actually accomplishing anything. The movie sets up well but never actually goes anywhere. The way that Elvis "survived" is intriguing and creative but the way that the Mummy just sort of showed up is stupid, as is having a black man become JFK. If this is your idea of a cult film, cult films are dead. Stick to David Lynch, Kubirick, and the Cohen brothers. This film has zero redeeming qualities after the first five minutes. Do yourself a favor and never see this film.

NO SPOILERS

I read this book and saw the movie knowing full well if they couldn't fit everything from the other books into those movies they CERTIANLY wouldn't be able to fit the book into a two or three hour film. Generally I think they did well, I do worry however about their ability to continue to do the movies if they continually leave out "small" things in the movie that come back to be "big" things later.

Casting is, as it was for the others, near perfect. When I read the books the characters look almost to a tee like the actors. The acting is good, Gary Oldman and the actor who plays Lupin do an especially good job. Buckbeak is better than I would have expected as is most of the magic effects. The patronus is the exception here and in general I thought that was lousy. All in all above my expectations but below the standard of the book.

This movie was terrible. It was supposed to be poke at the Hollywood mob mentality and chic lifestyle. It is a twisted mess of metaphors and psudo-inside jokes and it comes off as a massive waste of time. The fact that people buy into it is a testament to how desperately the concept has needed a vessel, but this movie is not it. It's like an artist who is artsy trying to pick on artsy people. Comes off as just as elitist as it tries to make Hollywood seem. There is one humorous part that still makes me laugh to this day however. Should you have the stomach to watch this pile, wait the for the "Malkovich, malkovic, malcovich" part. It's funny, It's too bad John Cusak was in this movie, in my opinion he had a great record up to this.