Susan Granger’s review of “Zookeeper” (Sony/Columbia/MGM)
This concept must have looked better on paper or no studio executive would have green-lit it. No one wants to make a dreadful movie – and there was Jim Carrey’s “Ace Ventura: Pet Detective” precedent. But something went terribly wrong in the translation from script to screen, along with a budget that ballooned to $80 million because of the CGI talking animals.
In a prologue, Griffin Constantine Keyes (Kevin James) is a hapless Boston zookeeper whose elaborate marriage proposal to shallow supermodel Stephanie (Leslie Bibb) is rejected. Skip ahead five years to when Griffin spies Stephanie at his brother’s engagement party. The animals love Griffin, who’s a really nice guy, and they fear losing him. So they band together to help him win Stephanie back, even if that means breaking “the code” which forbids them from verbalizing with humans.
Acknowledging, “Every time we talk to humans, it turns out badly,” the animals speak in very familiar voices. Sylvester Stallone is Joe, the lion who constantly bickers with Janet, the lioness, voiced by Cher. Among the simians, Adam Sandler is Donald, the indecipherable capuchin monkey, with Nick Nolte as Bernie, the restaurant-obsessed gorilla. There’s also Don Rickles as the frog, Maya Rudolph as the giraffe, and comedy producer/director Judd Apatow as Griffin’s best buddy, the elephant.
Problem is: the anthropomorphized animals don’t have much that’s interesting to say because the hackneyed, cliché-riddled script was patched together by Nick Bakay, Rock Reuben, Kevin James, Jay Scherick and David Ronn, based on Sherick’s and Ronn’ s story. Best know from TV’s “King of Queens” and “Paul Blart: Mall Cop,” Kevin James, aptly described as “a chaotic pile of a man,” is obviously a better match with Kate, a kindly co-worker, played by Rosario Dawson. And director Frank Coraci (“The Water Boy,” “The Wedding Singer”) primarily relies on slapstick, combining live action with animation, never quite knowing when to yell “cut” to the critters.
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Zookeeper” is a truly stupid 3, except for very young kids, and catch the closing credit song.
