Parents' Guide to

Zookeeper

By Sandie Angulo Chen, Common Sense Media Reviewer

age 10+

Pointless comedy is a waste of a talented comedic cast.

Movie PG 2011 104 minutes
Zookeeper Poster Image

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Community Reviews

age 10+

Based on 38 parent reviews

age 8+

Not bad for a family movie night

There are a lot of mixed reviews on this site for this movie. Bottom line, our family enjoyed it and it opened up a lot of conversation points that I think are valuable. I would watch this with your kids, not let them watch it on their own, so you can take advantage of the plot lines and scenes to have conversations later with your kids. What some parents don't seem to get is there are a lot of shallow, self-centred, judgemental people out there that your kid is going to come across in life. Movies like this give parents the opportunity to face these stereotypes with their kids and teach them how to deal with certain types of people (or help stray them away from becoming these types of people), how to find their own identity, how to recognize what things in life make you happy, how to face confidence issues or help someone else through them, how to be a good friend, how to tell someone "no," etc. It's utterly predictable and silly for adults, but our son enjoyed it. Good for kids who have already started to have conversations with parents about relationships and mating/sex. Not so good if you haven't breached those concepts yet.

This title has:

Great messages
age 18+

Good

Great for the whole retirement home

This title has:

Great messages
Too much sex
Too much swearing
Too much drinking/drugs/smoking

Is It Any Good?

Our review:
Parents say (38):
Kids say (71):

With so much comedic talent on board, it's really embarrassing that so few moments are laugh-worthy for adult audiences. Bernie the gorilla (Nick Nolte) driving a car straight into another car, Salem from Sabrina, The Teenage Witch popping up on TV just as Griffin has a meltdown about talking animals, and a couple of one-liners from the animals are about it. And that's being generous. This isn't so much a movie as a joke between James and his various comedian pals (Adam Sandler, Judd Apatow, Maya Rudolph, Faizon Love, and many more, who all voice animals).

Fans of Cher, who plays the zoo's lioness to Sylvester Stallone's lion, might want to stay for the credits to hear her (and the rest of the cast) sing Boston's classic-rock anthem More Than a Feeling. In fact, the soundtrack is hands-down the best part of the movie, with particularly memorable renditions of Flo Rida and T Pain's "Low," Barry White's "You're the First, the Last, My Everything," and Kansas' "Carry on My Wayward Son." Of course, the tunes alone aren't a reason to see yet another disappointing live-action talking-animal dud.

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