I didn’t realize how awesome it would be to purchase a fully functioning zoo until I saw this film. Luckily for the animals that would be involved, I don’t have enough money. But Matt Damon’s character does as he moves his family to a house on a zoo’s grounds in order to get a fresh start after the death of his wife. With the help of the zookeeper played by Scarlett Johansson, he figures out that the zoo is very similar to dealing with the difficulties of real life. I was under the impression zookeepers could speak to animals, but apparently Kevin James’ film from the summer wasn’t entirely truthful.
Damon has become like George Clooney in that his mild mannered approach to acting makes it so most of his characters come off as the same. Since Zoo is a light-hearted family film, this is no problem. Maggie Jones who plays the young daughter of Damon’s character is more refreshing than the familiar faces of the leads. She is mostly comic relief, but pulls the film together from something that could very easily become a mope fest.
There is a strong sense that the “all is well” type ending may not be exactly how this whole series of events would end up. Nonetheless since there are those words before the credits describing where the real-life versions of the characters are now, I guess it is at least based on fact. The film is paced well, but a bit long by family film standards. I suppose some of the son’s scenes where he gets angry and draws creepy things could have been cut. Overall We Bought a Zoo is a fun movie for the holidays. I think there’s probably more poop scooping than was portrayed in the movie, as well. Minus one for lack of realism. (8.7 out of 10)
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