Zookeeper (PG)TO be honest I didn’t initially recognise Adam Sandler as the voice of the capuchin monkey in Zookeeper.
The identity of the A-list tonsils screeching the wisecracks coming out of the computer-augmented pie-hole of Donald the monkey didn’t register amid this movie’s cacophony of critter chatter.
That is, until talk turned, as it inevitably does with Sandler, to throwing poop.
That’s the best piece of advice the cheeky monkey has for getting the attention of the opposite sex.
Yep, monkey business. There’s an awful lot of it on show in this execrable excuse for a family comedy.
Sandler leads an all-star cast giving voice to the animals of Boston’s Franklin Park Zoo, who offer unsolicited courtship coaching when their beloved zookeeper, the mild-mannered Griffin (Kevin James), tries to win back his glamorous former fiancée (Leslie Bibb).
Of course their dating and mating tips are entirely ill-suited to a human romance.
But that doesn’t stop bumbling Griffin giving them a burl: swaggering like a bear; going alpha-male aggressive like a lion; and marking his territory like a wolf (yep, that means urinating on something).
James, the chubby goofball who starred in surprise crowd-pleaser Paul Blart: Mall Cop in 2009, throws himself into the slapstick.
Most of his boneheaded antics are grindingly unfunny.
The verbal humour, too, proves more annoying than amusing, as the animals squabble and screech and yowl over the top of each other.
Sandler is almost unintelligible as the smart-alecky Donald, who plays up almost as much as he did on the set of The Hangover Part II and the Pirates of the Caribbean movies.
Donald takes particular pride in his thumbs, a running gag that’s one of the few to earn a thumbs up.
But Sylvester Stallone and Cher are mostly wasted as a grouchy lion couple who argue incessantly, Judd Apatow makes no impression as the elephant and Jon Favreau irritates as a bickering bear.
There’s also a hip-hop rhyming giraffe and The Hangover’s Ken Jeong as the zoo’s creepy reptile wrangler – a human character but suitably slithery.
Despite his big-name voice cast, director Frank Coraci (The Wedding Singer) lets their yap-yap-yap schtick peter out without punchlines.
For mood changes, he simply hits the shuffle button on a classic-rock soundtrack.
The unlikely buddy comedy between Griffin and Bernie the gorilla (Nick Nolte) has a few pleasantly rowdy moments but the tedious love story is so predictable even the littlies not the least bit interested in the romance plot will know that Griffin is better suited to zoo workmate Kate (Rosario Dawson) than his shallow ex.
Though it uses the same visual-effects technique as Babe – giving real animals computer-generated mouths – Zookeeper has none of that adorable Aussie fable’s quiet charm and captivating sweetness.
This is loud and witless. It’s monkey poop flung at the screen. And most of the schtick stinks.
Astonishingly, no fewer than five people are credited for the screenplay. Not sure which of them came up with the utterly pointless bicycle chase.
But at least someone had the good sense to send the audience on their way with a smile with a silly gag reel and animal sing-along during the closing credits.
Director: Frank Coraci
Stars: Kevin James, Rosario Dawson, the voices of Cher, Adam Sandler, Sylvester Stallone, Nick Nolte
Screening: general release
Rating: 1 star
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