Zathura

Two brothers (Jonah Bobo and Josh Hutcherson) find an old, space-themed board game in the basement and start playing it, with startling results. Their house winds up in a space journey involving meteor showers, malfunctioning robots and hungry aliens. This ends up being a great family drama about sibling rivalry, children dealing with divorce and the pains of learning to catch a baseball. The movie is another good one from director Jon Favreau (Elf). It’s also a visual triumph, with the brothers’ home taking to the sky like a drifting spaceship. Dax Shepard (formerly of TV’s Punk’d) gets a nice screen role as a mysterious astronaut who helps protect the boys from the lizard-like Zorgons, and Kristen Stewart is perfect as the self-obsessed older sister. Tim Robbins makes much of his little screen time as the busy, yet caring, dad. The movie has a lot of solid laughs and a big heart.