Zathura

I watched an early screening of Zathura yesterday with Chris at KLCC.

As it was free seating, I went in first while Chris queued up for drinks and popcorn. The movie was supposed to be in cinema hall 10, but when I got near the hall, someone with a hailer said that Zathura was going to be shown in hall 11 and would start soon.

I immediately went out to tell Chris. After he got the popcorn, we proceeded to hall 11.

We had a strange feeling as we entered the hall. I noticed that other people were holding yellow tickets, while we had tickets which were postcard-size with the poster of Zathura on it.

That’s strange. Perhaps the organizer gave two different kinds of tickets.

And then there was the guy with the hailer, conducting a lucky draw at the front. The prizes weren’t Zathura merchandise, but some other stuff which I had no idea what.

We then realized that we were in the wrong hall. The same movie was to be shown in two halls. The hall that we were in was for Ragnorak winners. Whereas the one which we got were tickets from Light and Easy (a radio channel) and the winners were in hall 10.

Whatever. We were comfortable in our seats and were reluctant to move.

Nevertheless, I went to check out the other hall and told Chris to stay put. The other cinema was almost full and there were only a few seats left.

But they were a mere two rows from the screen.

No way, Jose that I was going to take a seat in this hall. Besides, hall 10 is the smaller one.

The bigger, the better ma.

I quickly returned to Chris and told him that we were staying put. We had great seats and we’re not giving them up!

Before you start thinking that we’re mean bitches to deny other people their seats, let me point out that it was also free seating in this hall. The movie was about to start and there were many empty seats.

Of course we were a bit uneasy whenever someone came in. An unfounded fear that we would be kicked out of the hall.

We told ourselves that when the movie starts, it would be OK.

But it was amazingly irritating that people were still coming in ten minutes into the movie, even though the movie had started at least twenty minutes late.

And this extremely late family of four was the one who asked us what were our seat numbers. Just as I was about to ignore answer them, someone came up to them and suggested that they sit at the other side of the cinema.

Whew!

Finally, we get to enjoy the movie.

The movie was enjoyable; very much similar to Jumanji – two kids found a strange board game, they started playing, weird and dangerous things start to happen, someone who played the game earlier but stuck in the game showed up, the new guy helped the kids defeat the dangerous creatures and the only way to end was to finish the game.

In the midst of all, there was a moral lesson to be learnt.

The two leading kids (one ten year-old and the other six and three quarters) were good and convincing in their roles. When they were just playing kids and be themselves, that was cute. When they argued and bickered with their whining voices, that was really annoying.

Their antics were funny too.

Not much bones to pick as it is basically a feel-good and fun movie with enough doses of adventure and excitement. Though the ending was a bit perplexing.

I rate it a 3 out of 5.