We Bought A Zoo Review

12th Mar 2012

Cameron Crowe isn’t often making films these days, but usually when he does he brings something new to the table, but this is the problem with his latest film We Bought A Zoo, it just isn’t fresh enough.

Matt Damon plays Benjamin Mee, a widower with two children looking to offset his future by taking life in a “Fresh Start” direction. Turns out that he ends up buying a zoo. And it’s kind of that simple. The zoo represents every metaphor they could cram into the script for each family member as they integrate with the workers and seek to better the compound in order to pass inspection and open for the public. Everything from financial to emotional matters get dragged in and used to the extreme to illicit a response from the audience (including several music montages). There is even a sick Tiger on its last legs meant to represent Benjamin’s inability to let go of his already deceased wife.

If you love over-indulgent sentimentality then We Bought A Zoo will be right up your alley, but Crowe directs and paces the film like it was made over a decade ago with very little in the way of surprise or real warmth going on. The teenager in him is still very much active and wanting to express those moments in our youths that we cling too (as evidenced by Benjamin’s son and local girl Lily), but it is all a bit too patched together to work.

The main issue is that despite the fact that you can read this film on entering, it isn’t given a pace that you can work with. The film takes far too long to get where it is inevitably heading.

All that said – the acting is good, but it won’t stand out on anyone’s CV anytime soon. We Bought A Zoo is for those that like to dream to dare and snuggle up at the same time in warmth – which together make very little sense.