We Brought A Zoo on DVD - A Review by Maria

The 411 by Maria:
I was eager to see this because it starred Matt Damon and an adorable little actress Maggie Elizabeth Jones whose face just lights up the screen. Love her.

Matt Damon is a widow who is raising his children alone and doing a decent job of getting them where they need to go but not dealing with the death of their mother and how it effects them, especially his preteen Dylan. Believing that a fresh start would be right for his family he moves them to a house that comes with its very own zoo animals and staff.

With some cute moments, We Brought A Zoo shows a touch of reality. As a child who lost her mom and raised by a father, this is exactly how most men deal with loss. The scene of him and his little daughter going through his wives clothes and deciding what to keep just about made me lose it. I did that! While a deep emotional subject, I didn't feel the movie to be emotional. Damon does a great job playing a very, good looking dad doing the best he can, but even while he watched the movies of his wife with the kids, the emotion was kept at a family friendly level.

While there were moments in the movie that dragged more than others, I appreciated this family friendly movie although we were a bit confused at times (the ending) and flabbergasted at others like who was financing the zoo before Matt Damon's character came along, who paid for the staff and why did they help all those people climb over trees to get to the zoo. Maybe a rain date would have been better considering the liability on someone getting hurt. Although we thought it would be on as background noise while we worked, we closed our computer's 15 minutes in and watched all of it.

Great performance by Colin Ford who plays Dylan, Damon's son. Very good looking kid with a bright future and little Maggie Elizabeth Jones could just be standing there without a script and I would watch.