I guess the title takes away any need to guess what the movie We Bought A Zoo is about!
Matt Damon plays widower Benjamin Mee, a man struggling to move on from the death of his wife and raise their two children Dylan (Colin Ford) and Rosie (Maggie Elizabeth Jones).
Looking for a new start, Mee searches for a suitable new residence and the one house that speaks to him happens to be attached to a zoo.
If he buys the house he buys the zoo and the responsibility for reopening it - and against the advice of his brother Duncan (Thomas Haden Church) he takes the leap.
The zoo has its own motley crew of employees led by the beautiful Kelly Foster (Scarlett Johannson), who isn't entirely certain that Benjamin knows what he has got himself into.
In the wrong hands this could have been a depressing movie - Damon's character spends a lot of time grieving (though not obviously a lot of the time) over his wife - but there's plenty of optimism there as well. His relationship with his two children is a focus and they are very different connections, as you'd expect when one is a teenage boy and the other is an innocent seven-year-old girl who, SPOILER, still believes in the Easter Bunny.
What We Bought A Zoo does right is in the chemistry the characters have with each other, and that includes the animals - the 17-year-old tiger Spar is a major player in the film.
It's a strong cast, Matt Damon playing a father of a teenager makes you feel a bit old, and with Scarlett in there as well there's the added glow she contributes to her movies as well. Seriously, her character is quite sweet.
It's not a drop everything and rush to the cinema type of movie, but it is well done, has an appealing cast and a poignant story. A 7.5 out of 10.
Matt Damon plays widower Benjamin Mee, a man struggling to move on from the death of his wife and raise their two children Dylan (Colin Ford) and Rosie (Maggie Elizabeth Jones).
Looking for a new start, Mee searches for a suitable new residence and the one house that speaks to him happens to be attached to a zoo.
If he buys the house he buys the zoo and the responsibility for reopening it - and against the advice of his brother Duncan (Thomas Haden Church) he takes the leap.
The zoo has its own motley crew of employees led by the beautiful Kelly Foster (Scarlett Johannson), who isn't entirely certain that Benjamin knows what he has got himself into.
In the wrong hands this could have been a depressing movie - Damon's character spends a lot of time grieving (though not obviously a lot of the time) over his wife - but there's plenty of optimism there as well. His relationship with his two children is a focus and they are very different connections, as you'd expect when one is a teenage boy and the other is an innocent seven-year-old girl who, SPOILER, still believes in the Easter Bunny.
What We Bought A Zoo does right is in the chemistry the characters have with each other, and that includes the animals - the 17-year-old tiger Spar is a major player in the film.
It's a strong cast, Matt Damon playing a father of a teenager makes you feel a bit old, and with Scarlett in there as well there's the added glow she contributes to her movies as well. Seriously, her character is quite sweet.
It's not a drop everything and rush to the cinema type of movie, but it is well done, has an appealing cast and a poignant story. A 7.5 out of 10.
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