Film review: Zookeeper

If Prague's early 2011 releases saw the big fight for Best Film of the Year (what with all the Oscar material filtering through) then we're now witnessing quite the contrary. A Kevin James vehicle produced by Adam Sandler's production company, Zookeeper is what happens when you have too much dough to play with, too many A-list contacts to lean on, and far too much faith in your own indefatigable hilarity.

Kevin James is lovelorn zookeeper Griffin, a man still struggling to forget his avaricious but beautiful ex-lover (Leslie Bibb) who spurned his marriage proposal five years previous. When she resurfaces, Griffin is eager to pin her down and plans to quit the zoo for a "respectable" job in car sales. This is the last thing the zoo's inhabitants want. Griffin is the best darned zookeeper they've ever had - time to break their vow of silence and have a word with him. So begins this ugly convergence of a third-rate rom-com with Doctor Dolittle.

Clearly the celebs behind Zookeeper's animals are a major selling point - with Sylvester Stallone voicing dozy Joe the Lion, Cher as his wife, Judd Apatow signing on as a panicky elephant and Sandler himself playing a monkey, no expense has been spared with casting. Whether any of these big shots gave the script the once-over before spouting it into the microphone is another thing, but one can just about picture James (he co-wrote this claptrap) on the sidelines egging everyone on: "Come on guys, these are talking animals! How can it fail to be anything but the funniest thing ever? They're talking for Chrissakes!"

Nick Nolte, meanwhile, voices Bernie the Gorilla - perhaps the only crumb of consolation in the entire movie. Wrongly accused of mauling another zookeeper, Bernie has been demoted to the depths of a windowless enclosure under the zoo, and now mopes in a darkened corner, his trust in mankind frittering away. That is, until he decides to speak to Griffin, and a mutual trust is born. The T.G.I. Friday's party that cements this man and beast friendship may be preposterous in the extreme, but compared with the rest of the film, it's like watching the Marx Brothers.

Zookeeper's story unfolds in unerringly predictable fashion. Although the animals are trying their hardest to help Griffin win back his old flame, the blonde with a personality disorder isn't in fact his true love. That role belongs to his animal-loving counterpart Kate (Rosario Dawson) whom the zookeeper actually wants (you'll figure this out after five seconds, although Griffin himself doesn't realize it until he spies her wearing a smoking hot dress). But will the zookeeper end up choosing the right gal? Well, of course he blinking will.

Again and again, movies like this suffer from a glaring oversight: It's utterly unclear who Zookeeper is reaching out to. Talking critters and sundry puerility suggest it must be a film for the young'uns, But then, its adult-relationships theme (along with The Hangover's Ken Jeong pulling his usual wacko moves - now that guy needs to be kept away from kids at all costs) means this isn't massively suitable for under-12s. So who exactly is Zookeeper for? Zookeepers with relationship woes?

And the flaws don't stop there. The very concept of Griffin taking wooing advice from zoo animals - although mildly cute in theory - is not compatible with the storyline. So, for instance, when Sebastian the Wolf (Bas Rutten) suggests Griffin mark his territory with urine, the impressionable klutz does exactly this - in a potted plant in the middle of a wedding party. Just as well Donald the Monkey didn't advise him to pleasure himself into the soup.

Although James is hell-bent on flogging himself to the public as a lovable lump, this movie is not going to help his plight any. Zookeeper is lazy and downright patronizing, and if you gave a group of monkeys film equipment for an afternoon, it isn't likely they'd come up with something better - it's a downright certainty.

Will Noble can be reached at
wnoble@praguepost.com