Review: Zookeeper

People will like Zookeeper because they like to laugh at stupid things, maybe because our lives are so relentlessly dark and filled with pain that we must find pleasure in the simple troubles of another unfortunate human being, or because ostensibly a film about talking animals and Kevin James sounds good to them.  “It’s just fun and silly, you can’t judge the film for not making sense!” some will say, pleased with their ability to enjoy lowbrow humor. Well, Zookeeper fails even to bring the funny, with only a few moments of actual hilarity. There is one solid Paul Simon reference, however.

Zookeeper is a relentlessly forward-moving machine of a film that explores the sappy and relatively meaningless world of a zookeeper named Griffin (Kevin James), who lost the woman of his dreams (Leslie Bibb) five years ago and has a chance to win her back again. His zookeeper friends (Rosario Dawson and Ken Jeong) are on board, and so are the animals … who can talk — twist! They want to help Griffin get back together with the heinous woman who broke his heart. Under their tutelage he learns how to take the basic principles of the animal kingdom to get the girl.

Also, welcome to the most pathetic and desperately sad zoo in the world, which appears to be comprised of one giraffe, one monkey, one elephant, two bears, two lions, and a few other sundry miserable creatures. There’s a slew of wacky voice actors such as Adam Sandler, Nick Nolte, and Maya Rudolph, but there are almost too many animals to really keep track of who’s who and there doesn’t appear to be much to know about their lives. One wonders why these animals, which have held their silence for the 10 years that Griffin has worked at the zoo, chose to speak out about his dating life, rather than about, oh, the fact that they are all living in very small enclosures and seem to have pretty terrible lives?

The PG rating and the talking animals make it seem like it’s going to be a children’s film, but Zookeeper deals with problems that most children couldn’t give a crap about, as the plot mostly revolves around Kevin James’ struggles to win back the affections of a woman who dumped him five years previously, even though she is incredibly shallow and uninteresting from the first time we meet her. It isn’t that it’s too complicated, it’s that it doesn’t matter to anyone, least of all a child. However, since it’s apparently a rom-com film, there are strangely no hints of real sexuality, nothing more than a tame kiss or two (and some creepily borderline inappropriate animal-made jokes) to indicate any kind of adult relationships in the film. There’s nothing in it that would interest an adult. So, congratulations, you’re left with a film that children will struggle to maintain interest in, and adults won’t care about at all. There were seven credited writers on the film, and the worst part is, you can kind of see throughout the story hints of rewrites, times in which it was perhaps geared more for children, and then rewritten to appeal to adults, inevitably annoying everyone but those who expect nothing and get it in return for the price of a movie ticket.

I would just like some sort of written statement from actors like James who obviously make films like this for the paycheck.

Surely he’s seen a film that touched him deeply before, a movie that made him laugh or even almost cry with the intensity of emotion and clarity of mind, films so wonderfully acted that they must have touched and inspired him to act himself. None of his movies have ever inspired anyone to do anything other than try to pass out quietly in the air-conditioning of the theater. So maybe he could just publicly declare that it’s all about paying the mortgage on the vacation home and sending his kids to school. But, I suppose in many ways, Kevin James’ career is his public commitment to pursuing the almighty dollar.

I promise you I won’t launch into an explicit deconstruction of the innumerable gaps of logic and mental gymnastics required to make a film like this work even if you accept the basic premise that animals can talk. Just know that the film is filled with plenty of moments so dumb that they just beg the mind to take them apart and see how they tick, such as Griffin sticking his arm down a lion’s throat, or Griffin and the gorilla going out for a night on the town. If you’re one of those people who pride themselves on being able to figure out the plot of a film in the first five minutes, well, the other 99 minutes of this movie are going to feel interminable as you wait for the inevitable conclusion.

For most of the film, since there was really nothing to think about, I simply tried to imagine James in a serious role or something other than the fat bumbling buffoon with a heart of gold, but he knows where his bread is buttered and I doubt we’ll see a departure anytime soon. Disappointing, really, because there are hints of it, tiny slivers of promise that point to his ability to convincingly play meatier roles.

For all the other things that Zookeeper does wrong, I must say that the production design and lighting is lovely. I have to give the film that. Marvel as the light delicately plays over James’ smooth and unmarred face, as it catches Rosario Dawson’s locks of hair and flits across her gorgeous countenance.  Dawson is beautiful and graceful in a film filled with bumbling and nonsense and works as an invisible thread, tying everything together in the end. While we can’t understand the motivations of anyone in the film, and can’t get a laugh to save our lives, we can at least stare at her lovely face for almost two hours and call it a day.

Grade: D