Zookeeper

Family movie night!  Plus: wise-cracking, talking animals.  Minus: basically a romantic comedy.

Zookeeper is a fun movie, as you might expect, with the goofy Kevin James and a bunch of live-action talking animals.  James plays Griffin, a zookeeper who loves his job and loves the animals.  They love him back, and when they overhear him talking about taking another, higher-paying job so he can get his girl, the animals make it their mission to help him get the girl while keeping him at the zoo.  They break their animal code of silence and talk to Griffin.  His interactions with the animals are the best parts of the movie.  Their romantic advice doesn't quite help him out but gets some laughs.  The monkey says to throw poop; the wolf says to mark the territory by peeing.

A conference with the animals.

Other than the funny, slapstick, poop- and pee-humor (which my 10-year-old loved), the story is a pretty standard guy loses the girl, gets the wrong girl, loses the right girl, gets the right girl back romantic comedy story line.  Griffin's not a bad guy, but I was still wondering why both of these beautiful women were crazy about him.  They can both do much better.  All-in-all, Zookeeper is an entertaining but not great movie, with funny parts and a decent do-what-you-love, be-who-you-are message.

Bottom line, 2 stars.