{2jtab: Movie Review}

We Bought a Zoo - Movie Review

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3 stars

In what amounts to the soft rock version of Alexander Payne’s hard-hitting The Descendants, one family – led by the accomplished acting skills of Matt Damon - mourns the loss of their mother (and his character’s wife) with the purchase of a zoo.  Call it family therapy with fur.  We Bought a Zoo is full of the kind of loss that has been syphoned through the obvious feel-good Hollywood gloss.  It isn’t moody or tough to watch; it’s AM 70’s sing-a-long classic rock; perfectly harmless.

Director Cameron Crowe (Jerry Maguire, Almost Famous) fills the film with plenty of angst and attitude and, together with co-writer Aline Brosh McKenna, have adapted the true life material in a very formulaic manner.  This is a bit of letdown because, at times, the heart of the movie; the grief contained in the movie gets to be a bit heavy-handed – especially with no real surprises in where the material goes.  Crowe, as a screenwriter, is a romantic.  There’s no doubt to that, but he also shares that aspect with an unrealistic utopian belief system.  Alongside the gentle trappings of a Christmas-released family film, there’s a limit to the honesty the picture can provide.

Crowe angles the predictability factor in such a way that the film, while glaringly obvious, isn’t a disappointment.  Ben Mee (Damon), brought to his knees by the loss of his wife, purchases a zoo from an attractive socially-challenged zookeeper named Kelly (Scarlett Johansson in a welcomed unglamorous role).  His son Dylan (Colin Ford), deep in the throes of teenage angst, is placated by the attention of a teen zookeeper named Lily (Elle Fanning) and his daughter Rosie (Maggie Elizabeth Jones) finds herself among the wildlife.  All this developing with Ben’s brother (Thomas Haden Church) tries to convince him to join the real world.

Of course, we don’t mind the predictability in the film’s unveiling due to the strength of the story the movie is based upon.  The mostly real events – scrambled like eggs by Hollywood in order to mine communication gaps between a father and his son and a feel good ending – are real and full of heart.  Most of We Bought a Zoo is heavy with a sense of loss and even heavier with its dismissal of logic and lifting from Crowe’s Greatest Hits.  For example, instead of Cusack and a boombox, we get a sign in a window; instead of Cruise and a declaration, we get a zoo.  But why let it ruffle your feathers?  Why let the fur fly?

If anything, the reliability of Damon’s acting sells everything about We Bought a Zoo.  The cartoonish sneering of zoo inspector Walter Ferris (John Michael Higgins) isn’t going to do it and as likable as Johansson is, the movie works best under the watchful guise of Damon.  Here, his heart heaves the heavy sense of loss and sells us on the idea of a man thumbing for a ride into the land of hope and dreams.  Damon presents Ben as a man lost among the living with memories of the dead.  There’s no doubting his performance and that is the film’s promising part.

We Bought a Zoo isn’t the proud lion of Crowe’s filmography; it meows more than it roars. The film never growls or shows any teeth and it won’t threaten audiences and, as a result, it shouldn’t offend even the calloused of hearts.

You can still pet it, though.  We Bought a Zoo doesn’t bite.

{2jtab: Film Details}

We Bought a Zoo - Movie ReviewMPAA Rating: PG for language and some thematic elements.
Director
: Cameron Crowe
Writer: Aline Brosh McKenna, Cameron Crowe
Cast:
Matt Damon; Scarlett Johansson; Thomas Haden Church; Colin Ford
Genre: Drama | Family | Comedy
Tagline:
We Bought a Zoo
Memorable Movie Quote: "I like the animals. I love the people."
Distributor:
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation
Official Site: www.weboughtazoo.com
Release Date: December 23, 2011
DVD/Blu-ray Release Date:
April 3, 2012

Synopsis: This holiday season, acclaimed filmmaker Cameron Crowe (Jerry Maguire, Almost Famous) directs an amazing and true story about a single dad who decides his family needs a fresh start, so he and his two children move to the most unlikely of places: a zoo. With the help of an eclectic staff, and with many misadventures along the way, the family works to return the dilapidated zoo to its former wonder and glory.

{2jtab: Blu-ray Review}

We Bought a Zoo - Movie Review

Component Grades
Movie

Blu-ray Disc
3 stars

4 stars



Blu-ray Experience
3.5 Stars

Blu-ray

Blu-ray Details:

Available on Blu-ray - April 3, 2012
Screen Formats: 1.85:1
Subtitles
: English SDH, Spanish
Audio: English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1; French: Dolby Digital 5.1; Spanish: Dolby Digital 5.1
Discs: 50GB Blu-ray Disc; Two-disc set (1 BD, 1 DVD); Digital copy (on disc); DVD copy; BD-Live
Region Encoding: A

The pleasant attitude of the film carries over into the 1080p transfer.  Bursting with natural light and perfectly realized colors, We Bought a Zoo doesn’t disappoint.  Skin tones are perfectly natural.  Black levels are deep and edges are thick; there’s a great definition to the actual picture with no artifacting apparent.  The film was captured on 35mm (a rarity these days) by cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto (Bareback Mountain) and the quality of the images trumps the quality of the story at almost every turn.  Fine detail is sharp and complete and very revealing in the textures of fabric and fur.  Levels are bright and saturation is to a minimum.  Good pictorial vibes all around.  The sound, a dialogue-heavy DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 presentation, isn’t going to win awards, but it does carry the actor’s lines with authority.  Only occasionally do the rear speakers kick in to help lift the movie’s overall ambience.

Supplements:

Commentary:

  • Hooray!  The commentary track to We Bought a Zoo is alive and kicking!!  Well, sort of.  It’s there.  It’s got some information, but it’s a bit too dry for its own good.  Provided by director Cameron Crowe, editor Mark Livolsi, and actor JB Smoove (who is in the movie for about 7 minutes), the commentary track spends its time discussing the true life story behind it, production memories, and detailed information (a bit dry) about the actual filming.  Occasionally, Smoove adds a bit of comedy to the serious affair.

Special Features:

In my heart I believe the theatrical version of the film is the weakest and most commercial version of what Crowe intended.  I have arrived at this conclusion after listening to the real Mee talk about the zoo (a segment included in the special features) and watching about forty minutes of deleted scenes that give audiences a clue as to where the film could have gone.  It’s interesting to see what could have been in scenes that show a spark of creativity that is missing from the theatrical cut.  Also included is a five-part (running about 80 minutes) documentary that extensively covers the filming of We Bought a Zoo and the talent involved in bringing it to cinemas.  This very thorough affair features great interviews from cast and crew and covers everything about the film’s production.  For music fans, the frontman of Sigur Ros gets his own featurette in a discussion about the creation of the soundtrack.

  • Deleted & Extended Scenes (38 min)
  • We Shot a Zoo (75 min)
  • Their Happy Is Too Loud (18 min)
  • The Real Mee (29 min)
  • Gag Reel (7 min)
  • Photo Gallery
  • Theatrical Trailer

{2jtab: Trailer}

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