ZOOKEEPER (2011)

Genre: Comedy
Director: Frank Coraci
Cast: Kevin James, Rosario Dawson, Leslie Bibb, Cher, Nick Nolte, Adam Sandler, Sylvester Stallone.
RunTime: 1 hr 41 mins
Released By: Sony Pictures Releasing International
Rating: PG
Official Website: http://zookeeper-movie.com/

Opening Day: 8 August 2011

Synopsis: In "Zookeeper," the animals at the Franklin Park Zoo love their kindhearted caretaker, Griffin Keyes (Kevin James). Finding himself more comfortable with a lion than a lady, Griffin decides the only way to get a girl in his life is to leave the zoo and find a more glamorous job. The animals, in a panic, decide to break their time-honored code of silence and reveal their biggest secret: they can talk! To keep Griffin from leaving, they decide to teach him the rules of courtship - animal style.

Movie Review:

Ten years ago, we could have chuckled at a movie like ‘Zookeeper’- after all, we did have our fair share of entertainment watching live-action talking animals in Eddie Murphy’s ‘Dr Doolittle’. Unfortunately, that novelty has all but worn off with a whole string of movies like ‘Cats and Dogs’, ‘Garfield’, ‘Beverly Hills Chihuahua’ and ‘Furry Vengeance’ since, so pardon us if we find it bemusing that Kevin James would freak out at the encounter. Yes, unlike the Franklin Park zookeeper Griffin, we’ve seen more than enough talking animals not to be too alarmed if one passes our way.

Anyhow, ‘Zookeeper’ is a movie with a simplistic premise- in order to keep their favourite zookeeper Griffin in his job, the animals at the Zoo decide to give him dating advice to court the girl of his dreams Stephanie (Leslie Bibb). Of course to do so, the animals will have to reveal to Griffin that they can actually talk- English, that is- which is really no more than an excuse to get a bevy of Hollywood stars to lend their voices (among them Adam Sandler, Nick Nolte, Cher, Judd Apatow, Faizon Love and Sylvester Stallone).

Unfortunately, despite their collective star power, their banter is surprisingly unfunny. In fact, watching them bicker over how best to help Griffin in his relationship woes is simply painful and somewhat akin to listening to a cacophony of voices that are making themselves heard only for the sake of it. Blame also goes to the five writers credited for the screenplay (Nick Bakay, Rock Reuben, James, Jay Scherick and David Ronn), each of them apparently more clueless than the other how to script something funny for their ensemble voice cast.

Since the talking animals have neither the novelty nor the laughs to keep you engaged, the task then falls to Kevin James, who has proven himself to be the likeable Average Joe in ‘Paul Blart: Mall Cop’. Here James once again relies on his Everyman appeal to make his character endearing- though the results are not only stale, but also far less successful. Yes once again, James is counting you to embrace his character as the earnest good-hearted guy trying to chase a girl way out of his league, but there’s only so far one is willing to indulge his character’s naivety.

How else will you explain why he would think that going around walking like a bear and growling like one will win him the girl? Or better still, pissing around in a high-class restaurant itself to mark his territory like a wolf would? We’re not sure who was supposed to find this funny, because we think even kids will likely find his antics plain juvenile and even outright dumb. And apparently, director Frank Coraci thinks that these gags are good enough to entertain his audience- well, we can say that he is absolutely mistaken.

But to give credit where it’s due, we did laugh at one particular sequence where Griffin takes the zoo’s gorilla out to TGIF and lies to everyone who asks that they had just came from a costume party. Is this one sequence enough to redeem a whole movie? Certainly not- so stay far away from this one. Devoid of any charm or humour, ‘Zookeeper’ is one film that should have stayed locked up in an enclosure, never to be let out upon unsuspecting audiences. 

Movie Rating:

(One of the most painfully unfunny comedies of the year)

Review by Gabriel Chong