....would have made a better show. Even in Black and White. Scrpter David Koepp may well have been brought aboard to pad this piece, which i saw in a theater in Atlanta, GA last night - for free! (An ARMED guy hired by Sony informed us that anyone caught copying the flick would be 'escorted from the premises'.... but WHO would want to copy this?) . . . . the audience was really well mixed and received the movie warmly. I thought the movie played too hard to the ten-year-old 'cussy-boy' crowd, who seemed after wards to be a bit embarrassed by it all, as were many of the parents whose eye I caught exiting the theater while the end credits rolled. Not a soul screamed at the reptilian, rubber monster that terrorized the six-year old (precocious, as usual); some of the sight gags were not fully developed (why was the bike falling out of the sky so pertinent? We never found out whose it was!); the teen girl feature was posed for the daddies in the theater. The LANGUAGE was a problem for me and will be for Evangelical Christians on out to your huge crowd small-town moralists; "Dick"; "Ass"; "God" and "O God....". Which begs the question: "Who is this movie for?" Take another look at Joe Johnston's work to see how a director creates for a wider audience. Hids "Jumanji" doesn't feel padded as "Zathura" does. The filmmakers could have gone for the PG-13 while they were at it, for the Fox "Malcom in the Middle" crowd. But I think that crowd is too small; look at your TV viewing demographic.... yes, this movie just misses being family fare. I hope I am right....