While its title doesn't exactly roll off the tongue, "Zathura: A Space Adventure" (Columbia) is out-of-this-world fun.

Directed by Jon Favreau, the movie orbits around two bickering brothers --- 10-year-old Walter (Josh Hutcherson) and 6-year-old Danny (Jonah Bobo) --- left under the supervision of their older sister (Kristen Stewart) while their recently divorced father (Tim Robbins) runs to the office.

Danny winds up in the cluttered basement, where he happens upon a board game (called "Zathura") that is collecting dust. He brings it to Walter as a peace offering, but no sooner do they start playing when they realize this is no ordinary game.

Danny turns the key that moves the rocket ship-shaped pieces around the board and out pops a card that reads: "Meteor shower, take evasive action!" As if on cue, a shower immediately begins, with sizzling comets pelting the living room, destroying it.

And that's not the half of it.

It turns out that the game has transported their suburban house into outer space with the only way back being for the boys to finish out their turns, with each round bringing new dangers in the form of rampaging robots, black holes and ravenous reptilian aliens called Zorgons.

In the midst of the mayhem, they rescue a stray astronaut (Dax Shepard) who returns the favor in more ways than one.

It should come as small surprise that the premise sounds suspiciously similar to 1995's "Jumanji," since both movies are adaptations of books by Chris Van Allsburg, who also wrote "The Polar Express."

All three movies evoke a childlike sense of magical, wide-eyed wonder underscored by menace.

The episodic plot is a little thin, but Favreau keeps things exciting and moving at a good pace, never letting the intergalactic action overshadow the story's emotional core.

Visually, "Zathura" is a feast for the eyes, with dazzling special effects, highlighted by a shot of Walter opening the front door of the house and gazing out for the first time on a spectacular space vista. Other touches --- a bicycle orbiting their house --- seem pulled out of Steven Spielberg's bag of tricks.

Incorporating digital effects sparingly, the film's nostalgic tone echoes 1950s' science-fiction films and pulp novels, especially in the retro design of the board game itself.

Favreau should be sent back 10 spaces for including a couple of unnecessarily crass expressions. (The siblings' squabbling is a bit too nasty.) But apart from some inappropriate words and a few scenes that may frighten very young viewers --- especially those involving the Zorgons --- the disarmingly sentimental movie is kid-friendly and imparts warmhearted life lessons about the importance of family and forgiveness, reminding us that life is a game "that you can't play alone."

The film contains recurring fantasy action violence, child peril, some scary images and minimal crude language. The USCCB Office for Film & Broadcasting classification is A-II --- adults and adolescents. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is PG --- parental guidance suggested.

-- David DiCerto

Pride & Prejudice

Not counting various television versions such as the memorable 1995 BBC Colin Firth-Jennifer Ehle miniseries (shown stateside on A&E), and some big-screen adaptations that took considerable license --- such as last year's Indian-flavored update, "Bride & Prejudice" --- Jane Austen's most famous work was, incredibly, filmed only once before: MGM's 1940 classic with Greer Garson and Laurence Olivier.

The MGM and BBC renderings were fine indeed, but the latest "Pride & Prejudice" (Focus) is yet another splendid dramatization.

As everyone knows, the story concerns the five unmarried Bennet girls and the strenuous efforts of their mother, Mrs. Bennet, perennially unkempt and frazzled as played by the wonderful Brenda Blethyn, to marry them off in 18th-century England.

Things are looking promising for eldest daughter Jane (Rosamund Pike), in love with the upper-crust Bingley (Simon Woods) who has come to town with his wealthy friend, Mr. Darcy (Matthew Macfadyen), in tow.

Darcy encounters second-eldest daughter Elizabeth (Keira Knightley) at a ball, and the first meeting has Darcy disdainfully refusing to dance with Lizzie, as she's called. Thereafter, it's crossed signals all the way between Lizzie and Darcy, whose dislike for each other --- because of his arrogance and her judgmental attitude --- masks a growing and profound attraction.

Her bad opinion of him is reinforced when she learns he had a hand in derailing Bingley's courtship of Jane, and his apparently cruel treatment of the soldier Wickham (Rupert Friend), once Darcy's childhood friend, but who now claims Darcy did him ill.

Knightley could not be more different from her recent turn as actor Laurence Harvey's punkish, heavily mascaraed, bounty-hunting daughter in "Domino." Here, she's the picture of a fresh-faced Regency-era young lady, deftly capturing Lizzie's spiritedness and charm.

Macfadyen is appropriately aloof and sullen, and is immensely sympathetic when he first expresses his love for Lizzie --- and, like Darcy, grows more appealing as the story progresses.

Director Joe Wright uses settings more realistically rough-hewn than usual; the Bennet household, for example, is a lived-in mess, and there are several shots of livestock that give you a visceral sense of the environment, but the film is nonetheless visually stunning.

Roman Osin's camera is always on the move, sometimes distractingly so, but is unafraid to linger on the beautiful vistas of the English countryside.

The supporting players are all top-flight: Donald Sutherland as the long-suffering father who quietly supports Lizzie, Judi Dench as the unpleasantly imperious Lady Catherine de Bourg, Penelope Wilton as the Bennets' kind aunt, and the diminutive Tom Hollander offering a gem of a comic characterization as Mr. Collins, a dull and fawning clergyman who, briefly, sets his sights on Lizzie.

Apart from a subplot involving a rakish character who elopes with one of the daughters with dishonorable intent, there is nothing to preclude recommendation for all ages. The USCCB Office for Film & Broadcasting classification is A-I --- general patronage. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is PG --- parental guidance suggested.

---Harry Forbes

Harry Forbes is director and David DiCerto is on the staff of the Office for Film & Broadcasting of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.