Zookeeper

Posted on July 7, 2011 at 6:00 pm

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG for some rude and suggestive humor and language
Profanity:	Fake swearing ("frickin'") and some crude potty language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Social drinking
Violence/ Scariness:	Comic peril and violence, reference to abuse of animals
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters
Date Released to Theaters:	July 9, 2011
Date Released to DVD:	October 11, 2011

This is a movie about how Kevin James can do so much better, but Kevin James can do so much better than this movie. In the film, he tries to change his life to be worthy of a woman he thinks he loves. In the audience, we want him to stop making movies about what a shlub he is.

James and a team including some of his “King of Queens” writers have produced a dull and oddly mean-spirited movie about a zookeeper who takes advice about dating (or, as the animals call it, “mating”) from the talking animals at his zoo.

The woman he likes is a fashion designer named Stephanie (the game and able Leslie Bibb), who dumps him in the first five minutes of the film after a proposal. Still heartbroken five years later, Griffin (James) sees her again. At first, he resists her indications of interest but then, just as he begins to respond, another old boyfriend enters the picture (Joe Rogan as Gale). The animals decide to reveal their secret power of speech so they can give Griffin some guidance on how to get Stephanie back. As you can imagine (and as perhaps you would rather not), the animals have their own ideas about how to attract the opposite gender. Since, except for the bickering lions (voices of Sylvester Stallone and Cher!), none of them appear to have significant others of any species, their advice is of questionable value. Nevertheless, this gives us an opportunity to see James walking like a bear and marking his territory like a wolf. Thankfully, he does not follow the monkey’s direction about what to throw.

But there isn’t much more to be thankful for. Adam Sandler (who provides the voice of the monkey) produced, which means it’s yet another slacker no-effort film, with another soundtrack filled with 80’s songs not to make any point or for any particular purpose but just because that’s the last time Sandler listened to the radio. And despite its superficial endorsement of being yourself and doing what you love, that over-done message is eclipsed by a weird turn in the third act. Griffin takes advice from the animals that seems to have been stolen from Mystery the Pickup Artist. They tell him to keep Stephanie off-balance by alternating insults and affection to make her insecure — and it works, not just on her but on others as well. There is a cliched race-t0-the-airport scene which makes no sense in an era of cell phones, but it does show us what and who is important to Griffin — until a pointless and distracting detour just so he can hit someone along the way that undermines that message as well. Griffin does some things he is not proud of but makes no attempt to fix his mistakes. The film seems to suggest that it is all right, even a sign of strength and confidence to hurt someone’s feelings.

The PG rating should not be a signal that this is a kids’ movie. Children will not be very interested in Griffin’s romantic adventures or the night out on the town he gives to the zoo’s melancholy gorilla (“Send some fried zucchini to that table of secretaries,” he tells the waitress). It’s downright smarmy, with the use of fake swear words like “frickin'” to keep the MPAA ratings board at bay. Poor Ken Jeong for the second week in a row is stuck in a humiliatingly shrill, borderline racist caricature as a snake specialist and Donnie Wahlberg is wasted as an animal-abusing zoo staffer.

James is a talented and appealing performer and even this mess can’t hide the radiant beauty and class of Rosario Dawson as a warm-hearted zoo vet. There are a few nice moments when Dawson sails across a dance floor on acrobat’s streamers and a few it-could-have-been-worse moments when it turns out that Griffin is not the usual comedy movie incompetent. He has a nice relationship with his brother and is good at what he does. But James and Dawson could be so much better doing something else.

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Grown Ups

Posted on November 9, 2010 at 8:00 am

Adam Sandler fans would do well to re-watch “The Wedding Singer” or “Happy Gilmore” rather than suffer through this excruciating mess of gross-out humor, eww-inspiring vulgarity, and soppy sentimentality. My mother always likes me to say something nice, so I’ll mention that Salma Hayek Pinault looks beautiful and the setting is lovely. Chris Rock gets off a few good lines. Adam Sandler doesn’t use his doofy “funny” voice. And eventually, it is all over. But that’s about it. Sandler has always been lazy and his films have devolved from slacker to inert. The increased efforts at injecting “heart” into the storyline just makes the rest of the movie look even more cynical, crass, and condescending to its audience. And that’s not including the misogyny and overall sour attitude toward just about everyone.
Here, he plays Lenny Feder, a successful Hollywood agent married to Roxanne (Hayek Pinault), a clothing designer. He returns to his home town for the funeral of the coach who guided his grade school basketball team to a championship. At the funeral, he catches up with his teammates, and they go off together with their families for a few days at a home on the lake. Of course each of them has a situation that is intended to be funny (not) and poignant (really not). Co-stars David Spade, Chris Rock, Rob Schneider, and Kevin James all look embarrassed to be there, the only flicker of authenticity on screen. Spade, looking hung over even when his character is not, plays the good time guy who never settled down. James is a family man whose biggest problem seems to be that his wife (a slumming Maria Bello) is still breast-feeding their four-year-old. Rock is a stay-at-home father whose pregnant wife (a slumming Maya Rudolph) and mother-in-law think his being a full-time dad is not manly. And Schneider, as always in Sandler films, plays a guy who the designated ewwwww-inducer, with personal and sexual habits designed to gross everyone out. He plays a man whose third wife is an aging hippie (Joyce Van Patten) and whose three daughters show up halfway through, two smokin’ and one funny-looking with a semi-Snooki puff, just like dear old dad. He also has the thankless responsibility of undertaking one of Sandler’s favorite gags — an impaled foot. And a disgusting bunion in loving close-up. What is it with him and feet! At least Tarantino’s foot obsession is on the beautiful toes of Uma Thurman and Diane Kruger.
Lenny, compared to his struggling friends, has little to worry him other than concerns that his children are getting spoiled (they text the nanny to bring them hot cocoa and then reject it when it isn’t Godiva) and being too embarrassed to tell his friends that his kids have a nanny, so he keeps insisting she is just an exchange student and thrusting books at her.
Sandler may have stopped playing boy-men who won’t grow up (hence the title), but as producer and co-screenwriter he is still a film-maker who won’t grow up. The comedy in the movie centers around pubescent sniggering stuck at about the level of a game of “Doctor.” Both adults and young teens are reduced to quivering, slobbering, hysteria by the presence of an attractive member of the opposite sex (conveniently giving us a chance to ogle them, too). But the only one who seems to have a committed relationship that includes a sex life is the one who grosses everyone out with his PDA because his wife is three decades older than he is.
The phony sentiment is no better than the phony comedy. Yeah, yeah, the importance of family and friends and board games over video games. And we are further afflicted with a rematch between our intrepid one-time champions and the guys they beat. Thirty-two years ago. About the last time any of these jokes were fresh.
Then there is the insult humor. Admittedly, there are some funny lines, but further evidence of the movie’s sloppiness is its lack of interest in making some distinction between the affectionate insults that bond people and the hurtful ones that spark anger and truth-telling. Further laughs are expected for the aforementioned impaled foot, injuries requiring a full body cast, and various falls and crotch hits, plus an older lady with an ugly bunion and intestinal distress she blames on the dog. If only we could do the same with the movie.

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Comedy

Opening This Week: ‘Knight and Day’ and ‘Grown-Ups

Posted on June 20, 2010 at 5:16 pm

Just to make things confusing, the short film that precedes “Toy Story 3” is called “Day & Night” and the big summer movie opening up on Wednesday is called “Knight and Day.” One is a 3D animated short (more about that coming soon) and the other is a big Hollywood extravaganza with glamorous stars and locations and lots of chase scenes and explosions. Got it?
The other movie opening up this week is “Grown Ups” with Adam Sandler, Kevin James, Chris Rock, David Spade, and Rob Schneider as childhood friends who get together as adults with their families. The trailer includes both drug and potty jokes as well as an extended sequence with a character swinging on a rope, slamming into a tree, and falling down hard. So, seems like they’re not taking that title too seriously.

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Opening This Week

Paul Blart: Mall Cop

Posted on May 19, 2009 at 8:00 am

Some things are so inherently funny they transcend time, language, and culture. Slipping on a banana peel. A cream pie in the face. And now we must add to the list Kevin James in a uniform riding a Segway in a mall. The vision of the large man in the crisp white shirt with a shiny badge primly rolling along past Brookstone and Orange Julius is funny even if you’ve never seen a Segway — or a mall. And James, who co-wrote, endows the title character with such piercing sweetness that even his geeky pretensions are endearing. “Fun fact!” he likes to say before spouting off some arcane fact from science or history. And when he tries to persuade a pretty girl at a kiosk that there is a raging controversy about whether security personnel at the mall will be referred to as “officers,” we can’t help hoping that it is resolved in his favor.

Paul Blart (Kevin James, with not just Segway and badge but mustache and Hello Kitty band-aid) wants very much to be a state trouper but he keeps failing the program. He has the heart of a lion and is even pretty good on the obstacle course. But his hypoglycemia hits him at the wrong moments, causing him to pass out. And so he is still working at the mall and trying to persuade himself and those around him that it is a job with some actual authority. Without a weapon or the ability to cite or arrest anyone, he does not get very far.

He is dearly loved by his mother (the wonderful Shirley Knight) and daughter (Raini Rodriguez), who encourage him to use perfectmatch.com to find a date. But there is a sweet young woman named Amy in a synthetic wig at the hair weave kiosk (Jayma Mays) who somehow gives him a reason to try to reach out. And then the bad guys arrive, and it’s time for “Die Hard” on laughing gas.

Despite its origins as a Happy Madison production (Adam Sandler’s company), this film avoids most crude humor and all references to 80’s pop culture. It drags a bit on its way to the reindeer-named bad guys but once they arrive, zooming through the mall on skateboards and dirt bikes, with only security guard — I mean security officer — Blart and his Segway plus whatever he can find Sharper Image and the sporting goods store, it kicks into gear. Blart’s got you covered.

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