Memo to Cameron Crowe: You can’t just put a cute kid in a movie and think that’s enough to sell the audience on it. Crowe shouldn’t need such an admonition. The 57-year-old writer-director has made a number of films, some of them very good: “Almost Famous,” “Jerry Maguire,” “Singles.” His latest, though, could be the laziest he’s ever made.
“We Bought a Zoo” isn’t a terrible movie. It’s an average one. But the man who wrote “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” shouldn’t be writing average movies, even if this is being billed as his first film for the whole family.
| On screen |
| ‘We Bought a Zoo’ |
| 2 out of 4 stars |
| Stars: Matt Damon, Scarlett Johansson, Thomas Haden Church |
| Director: Cameron Crowe |
| Rated: PG for language and some thematic elements |
| Running time: 124 minutes |
The movie opens with a summation of the career of California scribe Benjamin Mee (Matt Damon). He’s one of those glossy-magazine writers who travel fearlessly into the stony eyes of hurricanes and the black hearts of dictators. But his son, narrating, tells us that none of those adventures “prepared him for this.”
Benjamin’s wife died just months ago, taken by cancer. We learn this crucial information in a clever way: 14-year-old Dylan brushes off his father’s lectures with the line, “Dad, nobody’s going to give an F to a kid whose mom died six months ago.”
In fact, Dylan’s principal gives him worse: an expulsion. Looking for a fresh start for himself, his son, and his 7-year-old daughter, Rosie, Benjamin makes a wildly bad decision. He buys a zoo. Not just any zoo, but one that’s on the brink of insolvency and will require his life savings — and more — to have any chance of reopening.
Luckily, he has some help, notably from head zookeeper Kelly (Scarlett Johansson). Crowe loves to put a blonde on a pedestal in each of his movies. Surprisingly, this time it isn’t Johansson. Instead, it’s Elle Fanning who’s turned into an angel, one who develops a seemingly hopeless crush on the sullen Dylan.
It’s not just Crowe’s women who are unrealistically perfect this time. Benjamin is having problems with Dylan, but he seems to be doing everything right. His brother (Thomas Haden Church, who is sadly becoming typecast) is an accountant, but not one without a heart.
There aren’t any shades of gray in this movie. Perhaps that’s what Crowe intended to deliver during the holiday season. But with an eminently predictable plot, “We Bought a Zoo” needed some interesting people. Patrick Fugit, the young star of “Almost Famous,” does little here but smile. Rosie, played by the adorable Maggie Elizabeth Jones, is the most fascinating of a dull bunch. But it’s unfair to expect a child — no matter how charming — to carry a movie.
