Release Date: July 8th, 2011
Watched On: July 5th, 2011
Ticket Price: Press Screening
Starring: Kevin James, Rosario Dawson, Leslie Bibb, Ken Jeong & Donnie Wahlberg
Director: Frank Coraci
Runtime: 1 hr. 44 min.
Rating: It Might Be on TV One Day – 
Synopsis: A long-time zookeeper thinks that the only way to get back the woman of his dreams is if he quits his job and pursues something else. When the zoo animals learn of his plans, they decide to break their rule of not talking to humans and help him out with his problem. They set out to help him get the girl and stay at the zoo.
Review: Zookeeper sucked. Not sure how else to put it. When the credits started to roll I remarked, “I’m not sure what to do with that.” Then outtakes started playing during the closing credits and sadly that was the best part of the movie.
I would rather have watched 104 minutes of bloopers from the filming of Zookeeper than the movie itself. Heck, I would’ve rather watched the full Zookeeper trailer 42 times on a loop. The trailer tells a tight little story with a couple of funny parts. Unfortunately, the funny parts in the trailer turn out to be totally random in the movie.
Lots of stuff just didn’t work, like the animals just aren’t consistently funny enough. While young kids may get a kick out of watching the talking animals, their parents are going to be wishing they had just rented Madagascar
If the movie is so bad, then how did it get even half a star? There are three things that kept Zookeeper from getting a Don’t Even Bother rating. Apparently, they actually used a real guy in a really well done gorilla costume, instead of CGI. It’s pretty impressive. I’ll give Kevin James some credit for being willing to make a complete fool of himself, even if it doesn’t payoff with many laughs. Lastly, Rosario Dawson is in it.
Overall, Zookeeper presently is the worst 2011 movie release I’ve seen so far this year. That means I’ve seen 31 other movies released this year that were better, which includes the terrible Sanctum that previously held that honor.
