Marking the Wrong Territory

Lame sleepy comedy mates badly voiced animals with kooky pratfalls
by Morgan P Salvo



It must be nice to be Adam Sandler’s pal. Keeping it all in the family and never having to make a movie original or sacred, just something mildly pleasing bound to rake in some cash. Kevin James is part of Sandler’s crew and Zookeeper is basically Night at the Museum where the zoo creatures talk when no one is looking. It’s a Dating Game version of Noah’s Ark, with James taking cues from the wild kingdom and peeing and grunting in public.
A typical “written-in-your-sleep” storyline, the plot involves Griffin, the kindly zookeeper, attempting to win back bad romance while good romance stares him in the face. The love the entire menagerie has towards the compassionate zookeeper feel the need to break their silence and lash out their ability to talk in an attempt to help get Griffin’s life together and of course stay at the zoo. We all know zookeeper’s real lot in life is with the critters not with car salesmen and plastic things riches can buy.

I’m sure the talking animals are wildly child-pleasing, but they weren’t realistic in the least. Incorporating real animals with the technologically outdated use of animated mouths, Zookeeper feels like an Animal Planet installment of Look Who’s Talking Too. The voices are a combo of bad chasing after horrid. The characterization of every critter seems wrong, like they were dubbing voices for another movie in an adjacent studio. Adam Sandler’s monkey screeches cute like Gilbert Gottfried and Maya Rudolph’s giraffe gargles in an Ebonics dialect sounding plain ridiculous. Sly Stallone’s lion seems brain damaged (what a shock). Cher’s lioness is weirdly out of place and Nick Nolte’s gorilla is just off the charts wrong. Plus the gorilla looks like a guy in the monkey suit from bad Konga movies.
For those of you that cannot get enough of Kevin James’ King of Queens shtick and/or the Paul Bart Mall Cop slapsticks here it is again in all its pratfall glory. He falls down a lot, runs into and breaks things, acts startled and has this uncanny ability to movie his head while driving to imaginary music, be it rap or heavy metal. Oh and he also busts some dance moves and acrobatics that show he’s still limber even though he’s a big fat guy. Through amazingly unfunny montages and lame dialogue still Rosario Dawson comes of demurely sweet and cool. I have no idea how she does it.
Zookeeper is poorly timed and strangely subdued. I wasn’t expecting Eugene O’Neill but was somewhat taken aback by this idiot fest and what some people find humorous. It’s too bad Sandler and company can’t make everyone laugh.


Zookeeper
Starring Kevin James, Rosario Dawson, Adam Sandler, Maya Rudolph, Sly Stone, Cher, Nick Nolte
1 star