There are lots of movies I’m looking forward to and I’m happy when I get to report on films like Rampart or The Wettest County in the World. But the site isn’t simply about the films I like. Sometimes I have to report on films that crumple up my soul and chuck it in a waste bin of sadness. With that in mind, the trailer for Zookeeper has gone online. The “family film” stars Kevin James as a zookeeper who discovers that animals can talk and that they’ll help him win back the girl of his dreams (Leslie Bibb) even though he’s clearly going to end up with a fellow zookeeper played by Rosario Dawson. Oh, and the animals are voiced by celebrities like Cher, Nick Nolte, Adam Sandler, and Sylvester Stallone because of course they are.
Hit the jump to see the trailer filled with slapstick and uncomfortable production placement for TGI Friday’s. Zookeeper opens July 8th, but maybe go see something else instead, like paint drying.
Click over to Yahoo! Movies to see the trailer in HD.
Here’s the official synopsis for Zookeeper:
The animals at the Franklin Park Zoo love their kindhearted caretaker, Griffin Keyes. Finding himself more comfortable with a lion than a lady, Griffin decides the only way to get a girl in his life is to leave the zoo and find a more glamorous job. The animals, in a panic, decide to break their time-honored code of silence and reveal their biggest secret: they can talk! To keep Griffin from leaving, they decide to teach him the rules of courtship – animal style.
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Cher is partly Armenian. A lot of people don’t know that.
Can you believe this is going to make at leas $120 million……….
I’m thinking closer to $200 million. Your average movie-goer loves Kevin James, animals, and slapstick comedy. I mean, did you see him run away from the lion and fall down? And then when he hit the bride and the ice sculptures? That was HILARIOUS. Audiences are going to love this.
They’re probably already thinking about the sequel after raking in all that cash. I’m thinking after he gets Rosario Dawson, which, as the author pointed out, is the inevitable conclusion, there needs to be some sort of conflict in the sequel where Kevn James is losing her. They’ll probably bring in a rival zookeeper who seems like a charming, great guy, but is really mean to the animals, and is trying to get rid of Kevin James. Obviously Rosario Dawson can’t see this because he seems so damn charming and loveable. The animals will then need to help Kevin James once again to both get his groove back, and get rid of the evil new zookeeper, after which Rosario Dawson will fall in love with him all over again.
Sometimes I hate Hollywood.
This looks exactly like Paul Blart but in a different setting. If the same kind of success follows James to this zoo film, be prepared to cry buckets of hollow comic depravity.
No wonder Matt has such hate with this film….it has Stallone in it. Kill urself!!!
this movie is going to make so much money. kevin james is like the successful rob schneider.
A fat guy! AND he fell down! $65 million opening weekend!
Hey classy having the gorilla listening to wrap music at the end!
hey what’s the problem?…everybody knows that gorillas love that kind of music…
Two things wrong with this movie.
1. Animals can’t talk as they don’t have vocal chords
2. Kevin James isn’t funny.
So what this movie should be really about is the downward spiral of a deadbeat zookeeper, who gets completely obsessed with some chick. This obession leads to delirium where he starts to think that the animals are talking to him, telling him that they crave human flesh. A close friend played by Rosario Dawson sees this transformation from sad fat man to possible psychotic but is too late and becomes his first victim whom he then feeds to the animals. Several victims later and much stalking, the movie ends with the initial love interest trying to escape Kevin James clutches involving a chase sequence in which she is mounted on a giraffe and James is chasing her mounted on a bear.
They just had put in a corny ass rap scene. So goddamn typical.
Anyway, we all know he’ll end up with Rosario because why the hell would we want him to end up with the bitch that looked down on his profession:zookeeper.
So this is like Hitch, but instead of Will Smith there’s a gorilla?