Silly, warmhearted folly. Delightful bit of goofy fun!

bopdog

Anyone that goes into a summer movie from Adam Sandler's production company, with talking animals and a comedy actor star simply has to take responsibility for their own actions, and their own reckoning process if they are not satisfied. They must stop moaning in public immediately, that a formula movie followed its formula, as it is unseemly and illogical to do so.

My goodness! This is not "Syriana," nor an Ingmar Bergman movie, nor something Sir John Gielgud would have been tempted to act in. This movie is a perfect example of its genre- a silly, warmhearted folly with a moral at the end. This much should be obvious to anyone who has ever entered a cinema before.

I noticed a few rather grumpy audience members writing that they were "shocked, shocked!" that the talking animals were not real, and the jokes were puerile. One viewer even complained that the relationship between the zookeeper character and the gorilla was not realistic (Huh? It's a talking gorilla! It's a guy in a gorilla suit while another guy voices the words from a recording booth. Of course it's not "realistic" Hahahaha!).

Kevin James has not been my favourite actor, I will admit. But I thought he did a fine job here. Much better than I had expected, after having seen his "Paul Blart, Mall Cop" (In my humble opinion, that was lame). James does seem to be a decent bloke in real life, and a lovely man. We all know a few comedians who have a veneer of a smile, but bad vibes underneath. Those few can give off a snarky or malicious vibe on the chat shows or even DVD commentaries- a bit of the weasel rumbling around in the real actor just underneath the character on screen --- but not James. I was not in the least repulsed, and actually liked him in this.

The animals were a hoot. I only could guess two voices out of the 15 nor 20 in the zoo scenes. The others were a surprise, but completely logical when I read their identities on IMDb.

You can safely ignore the self-righteous nay-sayers to this bit of fun. That is, if talking animals are to your taste in a lighthearted and goofy summer comedy.

score 9/10

bopdog 10 July 2011

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw2456419/