Zathura
Rarely is a movie audience asked to put up with so much noise for such a thankless payoff as it must with ''Zathura," a loud, endless family picture directed by the actor Jon Favreau. The kids around me whooped and hollered along with the movie, so it might be profitable. And for pre-adolescents, the action probably has a kick.
Two squabbling brothers discover an antique mechanical board game called Zathura. It spits out cards that come destructively true when read aloud. One card sends their big house into outer space, where in order to get back to earth they have to keep playing.
There's a killer robot, killer meteors, killer slimy lizard aliens, and, to provide adult supervision, an ineffectual astronaut. The movie also tosses in some mild foul language and one dumb sexual situation involving the boys' randy teen sister, an unwitting passenger in the house.
Twenty years ago, ''Goonies," which was also full of booby traps and rambunctious antics, delighted kids of similar ages to those meant for ''Zathura." (I was one of them.) ''Goonies" had jokey characters with personalities and a suspenseful plot. ''Zathura" could end on at least three separate occasions but drags on.
If the movie sounds like that Robin Williams fantasy vehicle ''Jumanji" from 10 years ago, that's because both have been taken from children's stories by Chris Van Allsburg, who also wrote ''The Polar Express." ''Zathura" is the least of the three movies because it abandons us with two of the most intolerable children to make it onto a movie screen.
They are a blooming jock named Walter (Josh Hutcherson) and Danny, the meek kid brother he teases (Jonah Bobo). The movie has them perform one inane task after the next. This may be to keep the story in motion and special effects coming, but the whole experience is like being trapped in a great big Happy Meal. (The sister is also a pain, but she spends half the movie cryogenically frozen.)
Favreau, who's not in the film, is a smart and engaging actor. But he's not as generous when he's directing. Both young actors demonstrate a talent for violently screaming at each other for minutes on end, and nothing else. Or else they're delivering lines right out of schoolyard recess. When Walter discovers the robot, he commands it: ''Get me a juice box, bee-yatch!"
Neither boy exhibits the pluck or cleverness that sometimes can sweep you up in a middling adventure. Instead, they continue the whining and bickering that probably began after their parents divorced. Tim Robbins plays the loving workaholic dad; we don't see mom's face as she never even bothers to climb out of an SUV. Walter may blame Danny for the split, but clearly, the movie thinks the divorce is her fault, that bee-yatch.
Divorce is not what's put the brothers at each other's throats for most of ''Zathura." Being spoiled has. The movies never have a cure for that.
Wesley Morris can be reached at wmorris@globe.com.
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