Directed by Frank Coraci. Stars Kevin James, Rosario Dawson, Leslie Bibb, Ken Jeong, Donnie Wahlberg, voices of Adam Sandler, Nick Nolte, Cher, Sylvester Stallone, Judd Apatow, Jon Favreau, Don Rickles PG cert, gen release, 102 min
IF YOU HAD to choose the one Adam Sandler player to leave your tortoise with, odds are you'd plump for Kevin James, the cheery, outsized, family-friendly doofus from I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry. While colleagues Rob Schneider and David Spade have graduated from lowbrow Happy Madison-spawned flicks to no-brow headlining roles, James has found gainful employment plugging the hole left by John Candy's passing.
It may be an unlovely vehicle, but you genuinely feel his pain when mean old Winona Ryder cuckolds him in The Dilemmaor when he owns up to faking success in the equally horrid Grown Ups. Elsewhere and away from the lads, James tilted rather poignantly at windmills as the lonely, loveable lug in Paul Blart: Mall Cop.
Sadly, Zookeeperdoesn't have anything like Mall Cop's emotional hook, though its plot is virtually identical. In lieu of a Cinderella security guard, the new film presents us with a Cinderella groundsman at Boston's Franklyn Park Zoo. Once jilted (mid-proposal) by avaricious airhead Stephanie (Leslie Bibb), James' latest lunk spends five years nursing a broken heart and monologuing in the enclosure of a reclusive gorilla named Bernie (Nick Nolte).
When he determines to win Stephanie back, our hero’s mammalian charges soon intervene with pointers delivered by the voices of Sylvester Stallone, Cher and, sure enough, Adam Sandler. Will their mating advice do the trick? Or will their human chum realise that his ex is a right wagon and that Rosario Dawson plays his adoring tomboy zoo colleague?
The Hangover's Ken Jeong joins Dawson and a capable comic cast. But between scattershot scenes of ripped pants and man-gorilla bromance, the script is feeble at best. Younger audiences may still respond positively to talking animals, but they'll likely be less keen on abused ones.
Rather troublingly, Zookeeperhas caused a storm in the US and called attention to a longstanding loophole regarding the American Humane Association's iconic "No animal was harmed during this production" guarantee.
It's true that no animal was harmed during this shoot, but the AHA doesn't police what animal wranglers do to ready their furry charges for screen time. Incriminating footage has since emerged from Have Trunk, Will Travel, the company who supplied Zookeeper's elephant, and Peta are equally perturbed that Tweet, the giraffe, dropped dead aged 18, a month after filming wrapped.
But won’t somebody think of the viewers? Who will mind our tortoise now?
