There’s something to be said about Adam Sandler and his brand of romantic comedies, which are so emotionally illogical and unrealistic, they vex me to no end. The Sandlerian gimmick is to make the ugly man in the age-old ugly man/hot chick pairing an obnoxious, passive-aggressive, at times moronic to the point of retarded man-child. It’s nigh impossible not to snicker and groan at a script that has the hot chick automatically finding the socially maladjusted man-child’s antics and company endearing.
With Zookeeper, the Happy Madison stable of writers and producers finally make reparations for their decade-long crimes against the romcom by turning the Sandlerian formula on its head. Yes, Kevin James (King of Queens) is the ugly guy with a dead-end job dating a hot chick (Leslie Bibb). But this time round, it’s the hot chick that is obnoxious, passive-aggressive, and at times moronic to the point of retarded.
Why would an ugly guy fall for her? Well, she’s still a hot chick (or if you prefer, a female analogue of any profile featured on “Douchebags of Grindr”) and that makes far more sense than the Sandlerian pairings. Because Kevin James is a below average, unassuming beta male, it makes sense that he’d bust a gut trying to win the lady’s favour – and hence provide the audience with a series of hilarious mishaps and pratfalls.
There’s also situational comedy in Zookeeper, courtesy of Kevin James’s wards at the Franklin Park Zoo. The animals talk but that’s not quite the gimmick. They talk and get James into all sorts of trouble by offering to be his collective primeval love guru. Why they manage to convince James into this, no one will know or care – not as they get him into one amusing mishap after another. Do the zoo animals turn him into a more attractive romantic catch? It’s what they talk him into doing that makes the comedy work.
As a talking animals film, Zookeeper is as PG and genially entertaining as you can possibly get for a genre traditionally geared to young children. If you’re bored, you might see this as an unintended spoof of Narnia, Planet of the Apes, Dr Doolitle and the generic talking animal Disney films. But as a romcom, Zookeeper is a subtle sign of a revolution taking place in the world of romcom writing. Welcome to the post-Sandlerian era!