Zookeeper: A Dog of a Movie

Imagine the bull session that led to the mess of a movie “Zookeeper.” Adam Sandler and his buddy director Frank Coraci meet Kevin James at a dive bar for beer. “My dog keeps peeing on everything,” says Coraci, three beers in. “He’s just marking his territory and protecting his mate,” says James, five beers in. “Hey! That would make a great movie!” says Sandler, who’s lost count.

And a mishmash romantic comedy – slash – kids’ flick is born, with a tinge of gross-out adult comedy for flavor.

Kevin James must have drawn the short straw because he plays Griffin, the titular zookeeper whose elaborate proposal to Stephanie (Leslie Bibb) goes horribly – but not particularly comically – awry in the opening scene.

See, Stephanie was hoping for something a bit up the social ladder from zookeeper, perhaps an exotic car salesman. According to some random statistics I found on the internet, a zoologist’s median salary is $64,000 a year and a car salesman is $40,000, but  that’s logic and logic has taken a vacation in this movie. Stephanie hates the zoo. End of story.

Poor Griffin pours his wounded heart out on the kind ears of the animals as he cares for them. Being the only zookeeper who gets them, truly understands them, they love him in return. He especially cares for Bernie (voice of Nick Nolte), a silverback gorilla who, in a move that would have the SPCA rioting at this zoo, has been confined to a below ground, windowless, solitary-cell of an enclosure and has developed a Prozac-worthy level of depression.

Naturally, when the animals reveal they can talk, they set out to help Griffin win back Stephanie. You may wonder what they think of human beings, captivity, or life in the wild. We’ll never know. It doesn’t really come up. Instead, a pair of passive aggressive lions teach Griffin to never back down, two bears teach him how to swagger, and a wolf teaches him to mark his territory.

I am not making this up. The wolf teaches him to pee on things. Which Griffin does. Hahahaha. Sillies.

The peeing , nickname of “pudding cups” for a certain delicate part of the male anatomy, and some inappropriate sexual references already rule out the movie for kids. (The film is rated PG.) However, they’re not really necessary to keep the kids away. For a movie with talking animals, the film is remarkably devoid of humor children will appreciate or a story to which they can relate. Griffin spends the movie in very adult angst over his career path and love life. For the Crayon set, these questions are about fifteen years over their heads.

When my son, who loves every movie he sees that doesn’t have skeletons, said it was only his sixth favorite movie of all time, you know it’s bad. That’s a nine-year-old thumbs down, right there. Nor did he laugh in the movie, although he loves animals with an abiding passion.

We could get into how the animals teach Griffin to be a bad, manipulative person and that’s never fully repudiated, the stunted friendship between the gorilla and Griffin that’s just sad, or how the pretty co-worker played by Rosairo Dawson clearly outshines Stephanie from the beginning, but such levels of discussion would be giving too much respect to a film that doesn’t deserve the mental energy.

Avoid this movie like you would a rabid wolverine. Or a rabid badger. Take your pick.

Can we talk about Harry Potter yet?