I walked into Zookeeper with a plan to tally off every time there was a fart or poop joke. Astonishingly enough, while the talking monkey (voiced by Adam Sandler) does suggest throwing poop on someone three times, there are actually no poop or fart jokes to be found. There is, however, an instance where a wolf teaches our titular zookeeper, Griffin Keyes (Kevin James), how to mark his territory with urine, a move he mimics in the wolf’s animal enclosure then again at a swank party that night, but come on, who among us hasn’t peed in a bush at a nice party? Yeah, thought so, no hands raised. Onward…
So no jokes involving feces is a plus. We have to give Zookeeper that if we are being fair. The film on a whole, however, while entirely innocent, isn’t good. It even lacks that childish charm you could attribute to James’ surprise success, Paul Blart: Mall Cop. Mall Cop, as bad as it was, was a film I could see a nine-year-old or younger enjoying simply for the pratfalls and goofiness. Similar attempts here fall flat to the point I didn’t hear much, if any, laughter from my screening audience which included several children.
My biggest gripe, however, is with the voice cast for the animals. Not only is the dialogue dull and unfunny, but wow, oh wow, are the voices terribly performed. Maya Rudolph voices the giraffe in some kind of unnatural alien-speak to the point half of what she is saying is nearly unintelligible and the other half is spoken in a tone annoying enough to be called offensive. Adam Sandler does his typical shtick with the monkey and even Sylvester Stallone gets in on the gag as the lion who is constantly bickering with his lioness voiced by Cher, neither of which seem all that interested in what they’re doing. Then there’s Nick Nolte as the gorilla who soon befriends Griffin as the animals attempt to help him with his relationship issues.
Just like that, we’re getting into the plot, which is nonsensical to the point it will make any thinking person’s brain begin to swell.
So by now you’re already aware the zoo animals can talk. In fact, we learn all animals can talk, we are just witness to a select group that is interested in helping out the zookeeper they love so much. Of course, if you stop for a second and consider we are watching talking animals that are able to escape from their zoo confines at any time and have amassed an incredible vocabulary considering how long they’ve been in captivity, it does beg the question why haven’t they gone all Planet of the Apes on the human race just yet?
Logic of any sort, however, has no place here. If it did, it might seem a little cruel that humans are keeping thinking and somewhat reasoning animals locked in cages like they’re prisoners at Guantanamo. Even after learning of their intelligence, Griffin shows no signs of helping them advance in society, that is outside of a product placement montage where he takes Nolte’s sad sack gorilla to a T.G.I. Friday’s and parties down with the entire restaurant. Yeah, it’s a showstopper.
Moving along.
The film opens with Griffin being rejected upon asking a materialistic bimbo (Leslie Bibb) to marry him. She basically squashes him like a bug on the grounds he is just a zookeeper. Nice lady. Probably want to hold on to her, and hold on to her he does, at least, in his dreams… for the next five years, which is when he sees her again for the first time since she dropped him.
It’s at this point the zoo animals catch word she may still be interested in Griffin and conspire to help him get her back for reasons I wasn’t exactly able to figure out. This group of talking beasts is well aware of the history of the two, seeing how Griffin has been telling them the story for the last five years, which would make you think they would steer him clear of this no good woman. Yet, the animals break their code of silence, which we are led to believe has been held “forever”, to open up a zoological “Loveline.”
The bears suggest he act like a bear. The wolf suggests he pees everywhere. The monkey suggests throwing poop. And the lion suggests treating her like poop. Strangely, out of all that sound advice, the only advice he doesn’t take is the poop throwing. What gives? In Griffin’s defense, he does utter the line, “I should have never listened to you guys,” which, for me, was the funniest line of the entire film. No Griffin, you shouldn’t have listened to the talking caged animals, but I wonder, was it the peeing in the bush part that led you to figure this out or what?
Throughout all of this, Griffin is completely oblivious to the fact his co-worker is Rosario Dawson, one of the most gorgeous women in the industry at this time, but I can see how it wouldn’t work; her character loves animals, he loves animals. She catches him peeing on a tree and even accepts his flimsy excuse as to why he’s doing it. Then, when he asks her to go to a wedding reception to help make the girl he really wants jealous he gets upset with Dawson because… she looks too good! Uhhhhh… no words.
Thing is, none of this would have mattered had there been any kind of that traditional fall down, schlubby fat guy humor James seems to have trademarked as of late. However, Zookeeper won’t follow in the footsteps of Paul Blart and rack up $146 million at the box-office just because it’s a bad movie. They’re both bad movies. But if you can’t even figure out how to make talking animals appeal to a nine-year-old you have severely missed your target.
