I've since caught him in a variety of things — reruns of The King of Queens with the always-brilliant Jerry Stiller, and what has become one of my daughter's favorite movies, Paul Blart, Mall Cop. He is always appealing, even sometimes downright lovable, so I guess I have to count myself as a Kevin James fan.
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| Kate and Griffin trip the light fantastic |
Zookeeper has been sold as a talking animals comedy for the kiddies, and it is — there is CGI and animatronics to make the zoo animals crack wise. But at its heart, Zookeeper is a rom-com. James has realized that romantic comedy is his niche and he's sticking to it. And he is usually a much more successful rom-com star than the more typical names that come up when thinking of the genre, like Jennifer Aniston and Anne Hathaway. Certainly his rom-coms have performed better at the box office. In the U.S. Hitch made over $177 million and Paul Blart made over $146 million. Aniston's Love Happens (22M+) and The Switch (27M+) and Hathaway's Love and Other Drugs (32M+) were lower performers. It's not a contest, and the ladies can sell tickets too, but James has proved that he brings strong rom-com box office.
In Zookeeper, James plays Griffin, the zookeeper at Boston's Franklin Park Zoo, who is beloved by everyone — his coworkers, his brother, and his charges, the animals at the zoo. Everyone loves him with one exception — Stephanie (Leslie Bibb), who he proposed to in an elaborate opening sequence complete with a sunset ride on a horse on the beach, where Griffin is emphatically and embarrassingly turned down. And then had to ride back across the beach, with fireworks blazing, a sobbing now ex-girlfriend, and a suddenly unnecessary serenading mariachi band.
Griffin has never gotten over Stephanie, and can't see his co-worker, the beautiful and intelligent Kate (Rosario Dawson), a vet and eagle expert, who is right under his nose. It's all standard rom-com stuff with a slight twist — the animals of the zoo have had enough of Griffin's schlumpy loser-in-love-and-life behavior and decide to coach him and help him win stephanie back. Of course that means that they also have to clue him in to the fact that they can talk.
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| Bernie and Griffin go out for a night on the town |
There are too many incidents of Griffin flying through the air to splat against something hard, but the kids in the audience all giggled, as did many of the adults. Watching Griffin and Kate try to make Stephanie jealous at his brother's wedding is one of the movie's high points, as they perform a spoofy Cirque du Soleil pas de deux. Also funny is Griffin's growing friendship with best bud Bernie (Nick Nolte), who happens to be a gorilla. Zookeeper is sweet and silly and fun. According to imdb, the next movie James has coming up is Here Comes the Boom. I bet there's some romance in it.
2 comments:
I like Kevin James, too, but not feeling the talking-animal thing. Although there seems to be a shortage of kid movies so far this summer, maybe they would like this one? I wanted to say, though, with the movie "Grown Ups" and Adam Sandler - who I also love - I thought the movie was asking alot of the audience to believe that he married Selma Hayek. Just couldn't go there, lol.
I was pretty skeptical about Salma Hayek, too. Not so much that his rich guy agent could get her, but that he could get a high-end fashion designer. Talk about incompatible. But I did like her with the other gals and thought that the film was unusual in having the women be as funny as the guys. Maybe they really are growing up.
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