We Bought A Zoo

Synopsis: Benjamin Mee (Matt Damon) is mourning the death of his wife while struggling to bring up his two young kids, Dylan, aged 14 (Colin Ford), and Rosie, aged seven (Maggie Elizabeth Jones). He gets the inspiration to move house and buys a large property which comes with its own private zoo. With the help of head keeper, Kelly (Scarlett Johanssen), and a motley crew of eccentric animal keepers they race the clock to prepare for reopening day, which first must be approved by the tough-minded inspector, Walter Ferris (John Michael Higgins).

Cameron Crowe, best-known for his autobiographical Almost Famous (2000), here takes on another true story but in tackling Mee’s rather astonishing tale, falls into the trap of suffocating his adaptation with schmaltz and rote predictability.

Certainly there is inspiration in the story – anyone struggling to overcome great odds is an inspiration, and Mee certainly takes on more that he can handle with this zoo.  The expenses are way beyond what he ever imagines and the requirements of meeting the stringent specs set by Ferris are daunting.  But if, of course, we know from the outset that he will succeed, even the journey to get there is too predictable.

There is the predictable incipient romance between Kelly and Benjamin and an also predictable friendship between surly Dylan and Kelly’s 13 year old sister Lily (Elle Fanning). There are many little set-ups of plot which bring utterly predictable pay-offs ( and in one weird segment, continuity runs off the rails, with Lily sporting heavy eye-makeup, and a few minutes later having none on at all). Well, you get my point -  I’m just over this style of film. Johansson is saccharine as Kell, with her signature pursed smile really bugging me.

The animals are nice enough, although how the hell anyone could have about 40 different species of them and keep them all in good nick beggars belief. Little Rosie is adorable, but in that slightly precocious American way. The zoo’s enclosure architect (Angus Macfadyen) is played like Hagrid on steroids. And Patrick Fugit (who played Crowe’s alter ego in Almost Famous) is another oddball who left little impression on me as a fully-formed character.

There are redeeming features.. The film’s major strength is the increasingly excellent Damon, who invests Benjamin with a lot of credible emotion. Also we see the under-utilised Thomas Haden Church, always a humorous guy to watch, as Benjamin’s level-headed accountant brother.  But generally I’ll reserve my animal watching for a real zoo, or in a good doco, and save my emotional investments for movies that are at least slightly less formulaic than this one.

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