We Bought a Zoo - Review

I love those little unexpected surprises that creep up on you every once in a while. Yesterday, while my two older girls were at a cookie party, I took Lauryn to the movies. It was one of those rare times when it was just the two of us together and I thought it would be fun to get out and do something just for her. As the youngest, she has that place in the family where she will never be old enough to do the things the big kids do and it really takes it’s toll on her.

So off to the movies we went. I gave her the choice of seeing “Chipwrecked” or “We Bought a Zoo”. I was secretly praying she would choose the latter since chipmunks really aren’t my thing. Lucky for me, she did. I think the big initial draw of the Zoo movie was the little girl in it. She looks just like Lauryn’s little cousin - seriously, the resemblance is so striking, the first time we saw the preview on TV we all had to do a double take.

While I figured we would be seeing a cute kids movie, I was unprepared for how much I would love it. If you haven’t heard much about it, “We Bought a Zoo” is the true story of a father and his two children who were searching for a new place to live after his wife died. They fell in love with a particular house… which just happened to be on the property of an all-but-abandoned zoo. They decided they needed an adventure and bought the house, zoo and all.

The great thing about this movie is that it in no way resembled “Zookeeper”, a movie that was released a while ago that had the zoo animals talking to the Zookeeper. In this Zoo movie, the animals were… surprise, surprise… just animals. While the family did become attached to them, the real message of the movie was that animals are wonderful… but it’s the people in your life that count the most.

The movie moved back and forth from sad and emotional to funny and dangerous. I absolutely loved Thomas Hayden Church as the older brother who was great at doling out advice, and really bad at taking it. I’ve never been a huge Matt Damon fan, but he was totally believable as a father struggling with trying to raise two kids on his own. The relationship between the father and his son wasn’t glossed over Hollywood - it touched a nerve. And Scarlett Johansson, who I never really “got” - let’s just say I didn’t totally hate her in the movie, although I just didn’t think she had any chemistry with Matt Damon. Oh well.

All in all, the acting was good, the animals adorable and the story very touching. I would definitely see this one again… and I’m kind of sad I didn’t take the other girls with us.

My only disappointment was how I was all excited to go visit the actual zoo depicted in the movie. The movie version takes place in Southern California. Unfortunately, the real zoo is located in England. As in… another COUNTRY! Not good. Lauryn was pretty upset to hear she won’t be going to see the real family and the real zoo. I suggested we go to the Santa Barbara Zoo. She looked at me like I was crazy.

Go see it. Really.

I purchased tickets to see “We Bought a Zoo” on my own. I was not compensated in any way for this review. All opinions are my own.