If you are going to write a movie aimed at a pre teen audience, here are at least a couple of rules:

1. it isn't cute for a little girl to use the word "dick". I'm no prude and I too often use bad language in front of my children, but it is different when they see someone their age use it.

2. keep the movie to a snappy 1.5 hour pace. Little kids start to get fidgety at the 1 hour mark. They simply won't sit for 2. Why make one 2+.

The movie has a good premise for a kids story. Buy a zoo and restore it to vitality. The execution was poor.

I suppose Matt Damon has gotten to the point in life where wants to make a couple of movies for his chidren to watch. I kind of like when actors do that as they are sympathetic to the role and don't use it for bankroll (Eddie Murphy). However, I think he played the role much too innocently. There was no chemistry between he and Johansson even as the story obviously was drawing them together. I'll just chalk it up to his first foray into kid's films.

This is really a great cast. I would have expected them to do more with a bad script then they were able to do.

On a final note, HEY HOLLYWOOD, THE INDUSTRIAL AGE IS OVER...enough with a dead parent being the central theme to stories. I could understand if we had some epidemic of widowed parents in this country and you were reflecting reality but the truth is there are very few children who have to deal with this reality. It's a cheap ploy for sentiment and emotion.

I really want to recommend this movie but I cannot. It was really disturbing that the producers/directors could not seem to understand this is a child movie.

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.