Griffin (Kevin James) is the lovable zoo keeper who treats his animals like family. Stephanie (Leslie Bibb) his materialistic bimbo girlfriend doesn’t ‘get it.’ She thinks he should work at the exotic car dealership that his brother owns because money is all that matters to her. But when Griffin is knocked on the head after falling Paul-Blart-Mall-Cop-style into a pit, he wakes up to an “If I could only talk to the animals” scenario. Bernie the Gorilla (voice of Nick Nolte) shares his pain as he’s an outcast in his own right… and that’s due to Shane (Donnie Wahlberg) an evil zookeeper who doesn’t take the animals as seriously as Griffin does. Third zookeeper, Venom (Ken Jeong) is a quieted-down version of his Hangover character with a sexy crush on the zoo doctor (Rosario Dawson) who happens to be the woman who shares-the-animal love and her OWN animal love with Griffin.
There’s lots of talking creatures including two lions (voiced by Sylvester Stallone and Cher), Molly the giraffe (voiced by Mya Rudolph) and Donald the monkey (voiced by Adam Sandler who also produces the film. Btw, the monkey is the biggest star in Hollywood at the moment having just acted opposite Bradley Cooper as the Thailand monkey on his shoulder in The Hangover.) Through animal strategies that seem to translate from mammals to humans, Griffin learn how to seduce, be confident, and corner your mate.
The movie feels like Doctor Doolittle meets Night at the Museum, and that’s a good thing. With the revenue and souvenirs Ben Stiller’s film “Night” did for the Natural History Museum of New York, undoubtedly Boston’s Franklin Park Zoo will cash in on the marketing cow for promotionals. (Franklin Park Zoo was my childhood go-to place and with zoos closing nationwide, it’s nice to know this might draw some positive attention, and keep its habitants safe and running for many more generations.) And finally, in the words of my little “niece” Marena, daughter of my dear friend Laurie – who sat and reviewed this film with me – Marena said “I liked this movie alot, but children might be offended that they say the word ‘Hell’ five times [yes, she counted.] Why couldn’t they just say “What the heck?’ instead of ‘What the hell?'” Out of the mouths of babes. Couldn’t agree more… Two and a half tiaras