"ZOOKEEPER" — ★ — Kevin James, Rosario Dawson, Adam Sandler; PG (suggestive humor, rude humor and mild language); area theaters
Throughout all of the woeful missteps "Zookeeper" trips over, there's one endearing element that saves the film from total collapse — an honest effort by a well-intentioned cast.
In that way, it's not unlike some terrible off-Broadway production. The players know they're involved in something dreadful, but hey, they have a gig. Maybe some director will notice their performance, or maybe the show will go on for one more night if everyone just gives it their all.
But in spite of the cast's sincerest efforts, "Zookeeper" remains a confused and uninspired plop of a film. In fact, "Zookeeper" is a movie so unsure of its identity that removing the entire zoo plot from the story would have made it a more coherent experience.
Beginning with a romantic horseback adventure on the beach, Griffin Keyes (Kevin James) endures a humiliating setback when out-of-his-league girlfriend Stephanie (Leslie Bibb) refuses his elaborately planned marriage proposal. After all, what self-respecting beauty wants to be seen around town with a zookeeper, right?
Enter equally beautiful and strangely into-Griffin eagle expert Kate (Rosario Dawson). Kate sees Griffin for the animal-loving tender heart he is and even finds his profession attractive.
But Griffin has no time to notice beautiful co-workers as long as Stephanie keeps showing up in his life. In fact, Griffin even considers leaving the animal world altogether to pursue the fast, easy life of selling cars and prove his commitment to Stephanie once and for all.
That's about where the animals start talking.
See, of all the zookeepers the animals work with on a daily basis, no one cares quite as much as zookeeper Griffin. So, if the animals can help reinvent Griffin into the ladies man he was born to be, maybe he won't leave the zoo after all.
As a romantic comedy trying to attract the family market, talking animals must have seemed like a safe choice. And to be fair, Adam Sandler's choice of voice for Donald the Monkey, and the character's superiority complex because of his thumbs, can be thrown into the tiny pile of things that worked.
But the weird mix of classic romantic comedy cliches and animal slapstick blends into something too boring for younger audiences and too juvenile for couples. As a result, "Zookeeper" plays out as kind of a carousel of genres offering quick glances of potential but ultimately failing to find any meaningful direction.
In the end, this project should have been killed as soon as someone on the creative team said, "So we put this guy in a gorilla suit."
“Zookeeper” remained relatively clean throughout, with some occasional suggestive humor, rude humor and mild language.