Review of We Bought a Zoo (2011) by Glen L — 28 Jul 2012

At first glance, you see the marketing surrounding the film and even the DVD cover itself and think to yourself "Wow, great... Another stupid hollow family movie that your family won't actually like." but it's like night and day after actually viewing it. Matt Damon plays down-on-his-luck Benjamin Mee who decides to buy a house but discovers it comes with a zoo and it's maintainers. Benjamin Mee partly moves him and his two kids in to help cope with the death of his wife and mother of his kids and develop relationships with the zookeepers along the way in a story of loss, family upheaval, perseverance, and moving on.

For a regular old movie marketed at families, it held my attention more than most Hollywood blockbusters with inflated budgets (I'll use Transformers again for another example... yes I can't stand those movies...) and the advertisements and movie itself boasts "follows actual events" and surprisingly it feels like the movie follows the actual events closer than most movies do that exclaim that point as certain events in the movie rarely end happily, making it easier to relate to the main characters.

While not by any chance the best movie ever made, We Bought A Zoo caught me off guard and was one of the more surprisingly good movies within it's vast genre, plus Scarlett Johansson is in it and it's always pleasant to see her.