We Bought a Zoo

10 out 10 for style; most depressed folks just eat a lot or watch TV endlessly. Give it up for the man who turns it into mid-life crisis material.

As the title indicates, widower Benjamin Mee (Matt Damon) does indeed buy a zoo, and then the suspense ends and the telegraphed plot points come in one after another. Oh goody, a checklist film. Every single one of these moments is promised within the set up and you can tick them off like milestones as they arrive:

[unordered_list style=”tick”]

• Doesn’t realize prospective property is a zoo
• Advised not to buy zoo by close friend/relative
• Buys zoo
• Money issues
• Animal issues
• Zoo personnel issues
• Dying animal metaphor for late wife
• Resolution with anti-social son
• Hookup between son (Colin Ford) and sandwich girl (Elle Fanning)
• Hookup between Benjamin and head zookeeper Kelly Foster (Scarlett Johansson)

I wish I’d brought an actual checklist, because this is exactly what We Bought a Zoo feels like. This story is more predictable than an episode of “Gilligan’s Island.” It is embarrassing for a director of Cameron Crowe’s vision to delve so deeply into the realm of schlock.

We Bought a Zoo introduces yet another cinema zookeeper to 2011. She doesn’t carry on conversations with the animals (Zookeeper), nor is she out to foil our hero (Mr. Popper’s Penguins), she’s different … she’s hot. Like so many zookeepers of our time, Kelly is hot, young, single and hetero. (Now is the appropriate moment to make your, “she can tame my animal anytime” joke.)

I hate it when I can tell embellishment from reality in the “based on a true story” tale. “Hot zookeeper” is in the fantasy realm, as are the entire questions of finance. Nobody buys a zoo without looking into how much it costs to run one. That’s just silly. And the case you’ve presented? By end of film, Benjamin Mee has run out of money. The sudden burst of tourism won’t cover costs entirely; best case scenario has him forced out as owner within six months of the extended-beyond-parameters timeline. The decision to go with a happy ending is 100% dependent on when you choose to end the film. The tale is far more easily told as a downer.

I found it pathetic watching Matt Damon confront a full grown grizzly bear knowing the vanilla-flavored screenplay meant there was never any chance of danger.

There isn’t anything especially wrong about We Bought a Zoo, but there isn’t anything especially right about it, either. The one scene that caught my attention was probably the toughest inclusion in the final cut, the inevitable confrontation between father and son. In the context of Zoo, it is completely out of place, which makes it superior and real. The rest of We Bought a Zoo exists for exactly one reason: to give unimaginative parents an alternative when they’ve run out of Disney-related babysitter options.

Rated PG, 124 Minutes
D: Cameron Crowe
W: Aline Brosh McKenna and Cameron Crowe
Genre: Fantasy just real enough to pretend it isn’t, but it is
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: Day dream believers
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: Real world parents