Posts Tagged ‘Rosario Dawson’

Predictable ‘Zookeeper’ embraces absurd premise

Friday, July 8th, 2011
Kevin James in "Zookeeper" In the romantic comedy “Zookeeper,” a kindly zookeeper (Kevin James) gets dating advice from a gorilla, plus other animals under his care.

Frank Coraci’s comedy “Zookeeper” contains more clichés than animals.

Neither grouping is particularly wild.

Nonetheless, “Zookeeper” embraces the absurdity of its crazy premise and isn’t afraid to venture into abject stupidity when the script calls for it.

It’s hard to believe how far computerized talking animal movies have fallen since the classic “Babe” hit the silver screen.

Then, a cute talking piggy tried to find his life’s purpose and a little self-actualization along the way.

In “Zookeeper,” talking animals exist merely to bicker with each other while ladling out romantic advice to the responsible zookeeper who protects them and takes care of them.

He’s Griffin Keyes, played by Kevin James as if mall cop Paul Blart suddenly decided to become Dr. Doolittle.

At the start of “Zookeeper,” Griffin proposes to his very blonde and vacuous girlfriend Stephanie (Leslie Bibb), who flatly turns him down because he’s a mere zookeeper, and she really thought he’d be doing something important with his life by now. (Read more…)

‘Unstoppable’ a heart-pounding ride

Saturday, November 13th, 2010
James Franco in "127 Hours" Engineer Frank Barnes (Denzel Washington) takes on the dangerous job of trying to stop the “Unstoppable” in Tony Scott’s new action-thriller.

Seriously, how threatening and scary can a big, unmanned choo-choo be?

Let yardmaster Connie Hooper answer that one.

“A missile the size of the Chrysler Building!” she screeches.

OK. Now that sounds scary.

Tony Scott’s “Unstoppable” celebrates the old-fashioned disaster movie where human hubris and neglect conspire to threaten the lives of untold numbers of people.

“Unstoppable” represents the cream of the disaster movie crop, a smart and compressed dramatic experience pared down to its essentials.

It bends credibility just enough to bump up the action, but treats the whole story as one big Fox TV news report with a “You are There” approach that produces goose bumps.

“Unstoppable” is also a working-class hero tale, “inspired” by a 2001 incident in which an unmanned train zipped along the tracks in Ohio before being boarded and halted.

In Scott’s inspired nail-biter, a neglectful railroad engineer (“My Name is Earl” star Ethan Suplee) starts up an engine and lets it coast along while he jumps out, presumably to run ahead and switch the track.

Not being in great shape, he bumbles it and the train pulls out with nobody aboard.

How bad can this be? (Read more…)