We Bought A Zoo

An Adventurous Animal Spirit

Director: Cameron Crowe

Writers: Aline Brosh McKenna, Cameron Crowe, book by Benjamin Mee
Cast: Matt Damon, Scarlett Johansson, Elle Fanning, Thomas Haden Church, Colin Ford, Maggie Elizabeth Jones, John Michael Higgins

SYNOPSIS: A widower moves his troubled son and carefree daughter to a run-down house and zoo in the Southern California countryside in an attempt to make a fresh start in their lives.

REVIEW: The last major film project brought to the masses by Cameron Crowe was the so-so 2005 Orlando Bloom and Kirsten Dunst Elizabethtown. The Almost Famous and Jerry Maguire writer/director returns to the big screen after six years to bring us the story of writer and adventure junkie Benjamin Mee who moves his kids out to the Southern California countryside to fix up a run-down zoo and fix up his relationships with his son and daughter. 27 Dresses and I Don't Know How She Does It scribe Aline Brosh McKenna assists Crowe to Americanize Benjamin Mee's book.

In the Benjamin Mee book, he uproots his wife and two children to the English countryside to fulfill his dream of refurbishing a zoo. While making repairs to the property, his wife falls ill with a brain tumor and passes away. In the film version Benjamin Mee (Matt Damon, Contagion) has already lost his wife to her illness and struggles to handle his morose son Dylan (Colin Ford, Push) and spirited daughter Rosie (Maggie Elizabeth Jones, Footloose (2011)). When Dylan is expelled from school, Benjamin decides to uproot his family and move them into a house that sits on a property that includes a dilapidated zoo with hundreds of exotic animals. Seeing the possibility of an adventure that could reconnect him with his son, Benjamin sinks all of his savings into the zoo, its animals, and the staff in an experiment that may leave him and his family in financial ruin. Benjamin's accountant brother Duncan (Thomas Haden Church, Sideways) tries to talk Benjamin out of the project at every turn, but Benjamin pushes on with the help of zoo keeper Kelly Foster (Scarlet Johansson, Iron Man 2), her niece Lily Miska (Elle Fanning, Super 8), Robin Jones (Patrick Fugit, Almost Famous), and enclosure designer Peter MacCready (Angus Macfadyen, Braveheart). Standing in their way to success besides money and a proper zoo re-opening is MacCready's nemesis and USDA inspector Walter Ferris (John Michael Higgins, Bad Teacher).

We Bought A Zoo is a tender and real portrait of the lengths a father will go to keep his fractured family together and safe. So many can relate and reflect on the aftermath of the tragic loss of a loved one. Matt Damon does his utmost to bring gravity to every hard decision his character needs to make, while keeping the spark of hope alive. Together with Colin Ford as his angst-ridden son forced to the countryside zoo and Maggie Elizabeth Jones as his wide-eyed adventure-ready daughter, Damon unites the audience on their journey. Scarlet Johansson excels as the hard-working but sensitive zoo keeper, desperate to keep thriving the animals she has spent years caring for. But the humans are only part of the story.

As the Mee family tries to hang on to their fragile family, they still need to try and get a rundown zoo in good enough shape to pass inspection for a grand re-opening. Rosie decides to foster the hatching of peacock chicks. Benjamin takes on the responsibility of the care of an aging and ailing Bengal tiger, projecting his own frailties onto the large cat. Dylan, on the other hand, withdraws to his sketchbook to pour his feelings onto its pages through pencil and marker.

Lions, tigers and a bear, oh my! We Bought A Zoo will keep you rooting for the Mee family and the zoo staff throughout. Can father and son work out their differences? Can Benjamin come up with the fortitude and finances to get the zoo running again? Walk a mile in a bear's paw prints to find out.

WORTH: Matinee or DVD

Super 8

Super 8 Is Great!

Director: J.J. Abrams

Writers: J.J. Abrams

Stars: Elle Fanning, Amanda Michalka, Kyle Chandler, Joel Courtney, Zach Mills, Riley Griffiths, Noah Emmerich, Ron Eldard, Gabriel Basso

SYNOPSIS: In a small Ohio town in 1979, a group of friends set out to shoot and star in a super 8 film movie about zombies. After witnessing a horrific train derailment during one of their shoots, they observe strange events and disappearances, spurring them to investigate the weird phenomenon.

Writer and director J.J. Abrams, the man who helped bring television's Alias, Lost and Fringe to life and revitalized a Star Trek film franchise with Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto, comes back with the tight-lipped, character-driven, super secretive Super 8. Cast with established familiar faces like Elle Fanning (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button), Noah Emmerich (Frequency) and Kyle Chandler (Friday Night Lights), up-and-coming kid stars Ryan Lee (Shorts) and Zach Mills (Changeling), and newcomers like Joel Courtney and Riley Griffiths, Super 8 and Abrams strive to keep the heart of the film on the story, characters and an unseen menace. Super 8 is a film the way Spielberg used to make films in that era.

What do we know going into Super 8? A group of kids are trying to make a super 8 movie and witness a massive train transport derailment during one of their night shoots. We know the military gets to town quickly due to "something" that may have gotten out of one of the train cargo cars. Strange disappearances and happenings abound throughout the small Ohio town - but from who or what? Is the Spielberg and Abrams name and allure of the unknown enough to get people to the theater?

If you like E.T. - The Extraterrestrial and Cloverfield, and grew up enjoying 70s hits like Jaws and 80s hits like The Goonies, then Super 8 is the movie for you. Part sci-fi creature fest, part secretive late "cold war" style government clamp down, part curious kids leaping into harm's way to find out the truth and protect each other, Abrams brings his anamorphic lens flares from the future space of Star Trek to the late 1970s and the small town of Lillian, Ohio, Earth. Joe Courtney's character Joe Lamb is both Elijah Wood and Henry Thomas, rolled into one. The banter of the kids Joe (Courtney), Cary (Ryan Lee), Preston (Zach Mills), Charles (Riley Griffiths), Martin (Gabriel Basso) and, especially, Alice (Elle Fanning) spouts out both realistic and juvenile. Courtney and Fanning are brilliant in their hopefulness and in their secret despairs. Opposite to the hopefulness of the kids are Joe's father Jackson Lamb (Klye Chandler) and Alice's father Louis Dainard (Ron Eldard) who shoulder the aftermath and animosity of an accident at the local steel mill that opens the film, their actions distancing them from their own children.

The pace of Super 8 is slow, but steady. Action highlights parts of each act, with the train derailment that the kids narrowly escape, the discovery of what is vandalizing the town of Lillian, and the pursuit of the Air Force to detain and capture what it is they let get loose. All the while, the children revolve around the center of it all. Even when the story slows, the characters and cinematography push the film forward. Every shot is handled with care, demonstrating Abrams craft with the camera. The gathering at the Lamb household, for instance, during the late winter with Joe sitting on the swing set watching as his father and Mr. Dainard argue is pristine and crisp.

Whatever it is that terrorizes the small Ohio town of Lillian could be akin to the monstrous behemoth of Cloverfield, albeit a distant kin. Similarities abound with pallor and tone, while the differences are striking as well. We catch glimpses and teases of it throughout the first half of the film, but Abrams makes great use of obstacles to obscure what the audience thinks it sees or wants to see. Taking a page from Spielberg's Jaws or Scott's Alien, it is better to imagine the horrors than to reveal it.

When all is said and done, Super 8 is less a movie about things that go bump in the night, sending dogs racing away in all directions and microwaves disappearing from appliance store shelves in the dead of night, and more about letting go of the things that we cannot control, and in the case of the USAF, should not control.

WORTH: Matinee or BluRay