The Film
Talking animal movies have been around since there have been movies (give or take). While we can never get enough of the cute, cuddly animated creatures, nothing could be creepier than when real animals actually talk.
The animals do just that in Zookeeper, via CGI, of course. They even get famous voices to boot. However, the creatures that seem wise beyond their years, as well as wise-talking, are not really the main focus here. Instead, it's star Kevin James in the titular role.
James had a huge surprise hit with Paul Blart: Mall Cop. So it's no surprise that filmmakers chose to rely on his everyman charm and pratfalls, instead of characters that have been done to death already -- and that's just in the Dr. Doolittle movies.
James plays Griffin Keyes, a guy with a certain animal magnetism. The problem is that it's with real animals. When his too-hot-for-him girlfriend (Leslie Bibb) realizes that she could end up spending the rest of her life with a zookeeper, she dumps him for greener (cha-ching) pastures. Thankfully, there's another hot chick (Rosario Dawson) waiting in the wings.
The real "lure" of Zookeeper is that all of the animals are voiced by celebrities. However, despite the marketing, they are not the main focus of the film. Also, a few of them, such as Adam Sandler and Maya Rudolph, sound more like they are doing bad impressions of other celebrities and go slightly incognito. We don't blame them.
So Zookeeper really relies on the whole fat/funny-guy-scores-the-hot-chick premise. Believe it or not, though, James isn't all that fat in this movie. He rides a silly bike, takes a gorilla to T.G.I. Fridays, splits his pants, and spots boogers. Come to think of it then, he's not too funny either.
Mark Grady isn't monkeying around when it comes to this movie. Check out his theatrical review of Zookeeper.
The Picture
Zookeeper is a new movie, and believe it or not, it made a boatload of money. This 2.40:1 transfer pretty much reflects that. The image starts out a little dark, with some grain. Also, blacks crush in a few scenes. That said, if you can turn off your brain for about 102 minutes, there's some good imagery here. The outside scenes are especially impressive, as are the zoo animals. Some of those animals are very expressive and have great texture. The CG mouths are kind of creepy, but those look good too.
The Sound
The Zookeeper audio track is also a winner. There's plenty of atmospheric sound, from traffic and cars, as well as crowd chatter. For the most part, though, this is a dialogue-driven movie. Even that sounds great, even when it comes to the animals. Of course, there's also plenty of recognizable '70s and '80s hits, which has become a standard of the movie's production company, Happy Madison. This is where the DTS-HD Master Audio track really shines, belting out classic rock classics across the entire soundfield.
The Extras
Zookeeper comes packing enough extras to keep everyone in the animal kingdom happy. There are bloopers and deleted scenes, as well as a promotional short entitled, "The Cast of Zookeeper." Most of the other extras focus on the film's visual effects. There's a three-part featurette that covers the animals, as well as the ostrich scene in the film. Another short talks about stunts, with one covering the actual live animals used on the set. Also, there's a lot more to the character of Bernie besides CGI. Apparently, they didn't stuff Nick Nolte into a gorilla suit. However, there was enough work needed that the character has its own 7-minute extra.
This release also has a few web-based features. It has BD-Live, as well as the option to watch the film with movieIQ trivia pop-ups. However, at press time, neither of these features were available. Sony assures us that these options will go live on the Blu-ray's October 11 street date.
One more extra is an exclusive for PlayStation 3 users. The disc has a 45-minute game demo for the upcoming title, Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One, which can be played alone or with up to three friends.
Final Thoughts
Kevin James is a likable enough actor -- just not in Zookeeper. The film is insanely predictable, which wouldn't be so bad if it weren't, well... so bad. The Blu-ray is pretty much what you'd expect from a newer release, with good audio and video and a nice array of extras. It doesn't really matter, though. Watching a monkey fling poo for 102 minutes would probably be more entertaining than this.
Product Details
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