Zookeeper review

            Happy Madison now has a steady flow of children’s films coming out after Bedtime Stories was a moderate success. They are not as raunchy as the days of Billy Madison or Happy Gilmore, but the cast of characters have stayed pretty much the same. There are some surprises in this film, however, especially in some of the voice casting of the animals. The animals is also a sore subject for this film, as there were many objections to the treatment of the zoo animals used during filming, and there were even reports of one which died during production.

            The stress of filming on animals is questionable, but it is almost difficult to believe there are many actual animals in the movie. Many of the creatures begin to look like they may as well be CGI once the computer generated talking mouths are inserted on them. And it seems like many of the eyes have also been given more expression, giving real animals a phony feel. All of these animals can talk, and they make this secret known to their favorite zookeeper, Griffin Keyes (Kevin James).

            Griffin is having problems of his own when his old girlfriend (Leslie Bibb) shows up. He uses his attractive co-worker (Rosario Dawson) to help win back the model, but we all see immediately what it will take Griffin the whole film to figure out. In order to get better at romance, Griffin uses the help he gets from the animals in the zoo. The actors chosen for each character is perfection. Nick Nolte is the broken down gorilla, Sylvester Stallone is the tame lion, and Adam Sandler is a tiny monkey.