We Bought A Zoo

Ratings: 7.5/10

Film Class: B

Genre: Family

We bought a zoo is a family drama based on a true story. I don't think everything in the movie was real, cos a huge load of its scenes were highly exaggerated, but with a plot about a family struggling to start afresh by buying a closed down zoo and fighting to revive it, I can't help but feel that I'll be damned for speaking ill of this movie.

It wasn't fantastic. That's for sure. It wasn't in any sense bad at all either. It was a slightly above average family movie which may trickle your tears every once in a while and there were a couple of good lines in it. Though the lines were a little out of place, and might not necessarily complement the scenes, they were in fact pretty good standalone lines.

*Major spoilers ahead* Briefly, such lines include (not quoted from the movie, but the gist of the lines are kept) "All you need is 20 seconds of insane courage", "Your happy is too loud" and "Sometimes we talk by listening".

Though cute, I personally didn't like the daughter in this movie. I felt that she didn't act well, but of course I'm just being too harsh on her since she's still very young. Elle Fanning, the cousin of Scarlett Johansson (one of the zoo keepers), though I like her generally, in all honesty, also thought she didn't act well. Either that or as my gf suggested, she possibly didn't know how to portray a country girl. Matt Damon's son, was irritating as hell with his unreasonable arguments and the way he treated Elle Fanning was crap (not personal). Didn't quite get his role. Didn't know what character trait he was portraying.

On the other hand, I thought Scarlett Johansson was convincing as a Tom-Boyish zoo keeper. Though I'm never fond of her, I thought she delivered well in this film. The chemistry between her and Matt Damon was convincing for me. And Matt Damon, as usual, doesn't fail in his acting.

The reason why there's so much criticism in the cast is because I feel that they are an important factor in making the movie a success. Ironically, though most of the cast may have "failed", the lines and story development made this movie quite memorable. *Major spoilers alert 2* Especially the scene about Matt Damon answering Scarlett Johansson with a mere "Why not?" when he was asked "Why did he buy the zoo." It was a rather awkward scene which ended abruptly. But it was explained at the end of the movie, which made it extremely sweet.

There's also an "abstract" metaphoric representation of how Matt Damon was feeling... with his reluctance to let go of the dying Lion, Solomon.

I have rather mixed feelings about We Bought A Zoo. There was a good 4-5 times which the cast kept "chanting" the title of the movie, as if the director was afraid we didn't know what movie we were watching and as mentioned, the cast were in general too ordinary. But because the way the events unfolded, it built up to a hard hitting ending which left me more satisfied than disappointed.

Therefore for anyone who's looking for a movie to bring your kids to, this is a good choice. However, bear in mind that the focus weren't on the animals but on the humans, so don't expect cute animals (more screen time was given for ferocious animals like tigers, lions and bears) but you can expect it to be a feel good movie.