Zookeeper Review: Are You Guys Even Trying?

First, I have a confession to make. I love Kevin James. The star of King of Queens and Sweat the Small Stuff has entertained me for years with his benign and charmingly earnest observational stylings, and no one else does the job with such apparent ease. Unfortunately, he seems to be paying the price now; Happy Madison’s Zookeeper is the latest installment in what will become a ghastly trend if he isn’t more careful.

The bumbling everyman portrayed by James in this case is named Griffin Keyes. He’s happy with his job, the nature of which you should have already guessed, but hapless in the romance department. For a reason which remains mysterious to us throughout the movie, Griffin harbors a stubborn obsession with Stephanie (Leslie Bibb)- an uninspiring iteration of the vapid, self-interested blond with aspirations of wealth and excess. The whole thing kicks off with a rejected marriage proposal before jumping five years ahead, where Griffin is still hung up on his ex, despite the presence of a beautiful Manic Pixie Dream Girl for the new generation, gamely phoned in by the gorgeous and always-welcome Rosario Dawson. Dawson’s Kate is a guest veterinarian at the zoo, and her desire to escape to Nairobi for a job serves only to remind us that Griffin has a limited amount of time to realize what’s wrong with this picture. He’s aided in his efforts to learn the game of romance by the zoo animals for which he has cared over the past eight years. Yes, they’re intelligent and can talk, but their prattle is less evolved than one might expect, considering how long they’ve been biting their tongues and waiting for Griffin to discover their secret.

Boston’s Franklin Park Zoo is home to these chatty captives, most of whom long for the wild and give species-specific advice to Griffin as he endeavors to win back his old flame. The flustered zookeeper is only momentarily taken aback by the animals’ verbal propensities, and soon, he’s grunting and growling like the alpha male he hopes to become. Apart from the pretty impressive CGI and the cringe-inducing bout of blackvoice plaguing Maya Rudolph in her role as the Giraffe, little is noteworthy about these creatures, and it’s a pity they don’t have more to say. Nick Nolte as Bernie the Gorilla would be an exception if only he were more than a mouthpiece for animal cruelty awareness, though I suppose Bernie’s real function is to prompt the seemingly endless T.G.I. Friday’s commercial shoehorned into the middle of the movie by wondering aloud if the restaurant is as great as it seems. This non sequitur is a much-appreciated distraction from the otherwise formulaic bore (the absurdity lies in the shamelessness of the presentation, though product placement itself is certainly not a new addition to the formula.), but it should theoretically be more fun than it is to watch Kevin James on a date with an ape, singing in the car and ordering baby back ribs before sharing a heart-to-heart under the stars.

I’m not sure if kids are enjoying this movie, but I hope that someone is. It has nothing too new to say in terms of being yourself and falling in love with The Right One, but it’s a positive message nonetheless, and the issue of animals in captivity is worth bringing up, even in commercial studio films with pants-splitting as one of the main attractions. For our purposes, this picture is another brick in the wall for lazy Hollywood, and another paycheck for the weary, selfless clown Kevin James.