We Bought a Zoo
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation | Release Date: December 23, 2011 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
58
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 41 Critic Reviews
Positive:
20
Mixed:
18
Negative:
3
Watch Now
Stream On
Stream On
Buy on
Stream On
Stream On
Stream On
Stream On
Expand

Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
80
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzDec 21, 2011
Damon can elevate just about anything in which he appears. Read full review
75
New York PostLou LumenickDec 23, 2011
Genuinely charming, treacle-free family films are tough to find these days, so I'm happy to heartily recommend We Bought a Zoo as heartwarming holiday fare that even jaded adults can share with the kids. Read full review
75
St. Louis Post-DispatchCalvin WilsonDec 23, 2011
As a man committed to reinventing himself, Damon is terrific. And Johansson brings to Kelly just the right blend of spunkiness and hard-won maturity. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleAmy BiancolliDec 22, 2011
The film is sweet. Its observations of life in the aftermath of death ring true, especially for anyone who's traveled the contours of mourning. And although it doesn't rank among Crowe's greatest films, it's a better, tighter, more disarming piece of grief work than his baggy and zigzaggy "Elizabethtown." Read full review
75
Washington PostAnn HornadayDec 22, 2011
Provides a welcome seasonal dash of wholesomeness and humor. Read full review
75
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerDec 22, 2011
Scarlett Johansson plays the head zookeeper and she's a lot less mannered than usual. Read full review
75
Rolling StonePeter TraversDec 22, 2011
Damon is extraordinary. He's heartfelt performance has a tough core of intelligence and wit. Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliDec 21, 2011
Heartfelt but safe. The missing element is the edgy irrelevance that elevated Crowe's best directorial efforts - "Say Anything," "Jerry Maguire," and "Almost Famous" - above their generic counterparts. Read full review
75
ObserverRex ReedDec 20, 2011
We Bought a Zoo has more soul than substance, but I'll be darned if it didn't put a smile on my face and keep it there. Read full review
75
Entertainment WeeklyOwen GleibermanDec 15, 2011
The movie is like Doctor Dolittle remade as a therapeutic sudser. By the end, it got to me. Read full review
70
The New YorkerDavid DenbyJan 9, 2012
Nothing that happens in this movie is in the least surprising, but it's all quite pleasant and even, at times, moving. Read full review
70
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinDec 26, 2011
Cameron Crowe is a romantic bordering on utopian, and his authentic family values - biological and surrogate - shine through in his enchanting We Bought a Zoo. Read full review
70
Chicago ReaderJ.R. JonesDec 22, 2011
The movie is quite enjoyable, though, redeemed by Crowe's trademark sincerity and assured handling of oddball character actors. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneyNov 27, 2011
Arguably the director's least typical film, it doesn't dodge the potholes of earnest sentimentality and at times overplays the whimsy. But the uplifting tale has heart, humanity and a warmly empathetic central performance from Matt Damon. Read full review
63
Miami HeraldRene RodriguezDec 26, 2011
We Bought a Zoo is the most formulaic movie Cameron Crowe has ever made: It is so generic, you could review it with a flow chart. Read full review
63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Rick GroenDec 23, 2011
Director Cameron Crowe who, not having made a dramatic feature since his 2005 stinker "Elizabethtown," seems bound and determined to crank out a crowd-pleaser here. Read full review
63
USA TodayClaudia PuigDec 23, 2011
We Bought a Zoo doesn't seem to know what kind of animal it is. Is it a family melodrama, a love story, a wacky comedy, a drama about coping with grief, a feel-good film about following your dreams, or, as ads seem to indicate, a gift-wrapped animal adventure? Not surprisingly, this menagerie of genres doesn't mesh. Read full review
63
Philadelphia InquirerCarrie RickeyDec 22, 2011
Often I couldn't see the character for the metaphors. Read full review
63
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsDec 22, 2011
Pap, but easygoing pap with a cast you can live with for a couple of hours. Read full review
63
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertDec 21, 2011
The result is too much formula and not enough human interest. Read full review
60
The GuardianPeter BradshawMar 16, 2012
It's a bit sucrose, especially at the beginning, but this traditional, sweet-natured family film will tug on the heartstrings. Read full review
60
Total FilmAndrew LowryMar 16, 2012
It's slight, sure, and there's a better, less-glossy film buried in the material, but warm performances redeem Crowe's agreeable return. Read full review
60
EmpireIan FreerMar 12, 2012
Zoo is the antithesis of edgy, an overlong, all encompassing experience that despite Crowe's integrity and lightness of touch doesn't deliver the emotional experience of, say, "Jerry Maguire" or "Almost Famous." Still, it is good to have the righteous dude back. Read full review
60
Los Angeles TimesBetsy SharkeyDec 22, 2011
An intelligent family film, a rarity, and while not quite Crowe at his absolute best, it carries his humanistic imprint and benefits from a strong acting ensemble that keep emotions in check. Read full review
60
The New York TimesManohla DargisDec 22, 2011
Whatever the case, you may not buy his happy endings, but it's a seductive ideal when all of God's creatures, great and small, buxom and blond, exist in such harmony. Read full review
60
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternDec 22, 2011
A movie you want to like, and a movie you can enjoy if you cut its slackness some slack. Read full review
60
Time OutJoshua RothkopfDec 20, 2011
Too much of the movie feels predestined - down to the rainstorm on opening day - and subplots involving budding romance end up forcing what's implicit. Crowe, meanwhile, still can't stop abusing his vinyl collection; the aural wallpapering of Bob Dylan, Cat Stevens and others will surely please postboomer fans who haven't quite gotten the hang of silence. Read full review
60
Village VoiceRobert WilonskyDec 20, 2011
The cynics will scoff and dismiss it all as manipulative, the heartstring-tugging machine on hyperdrive. But this movie isn't for them; did you not see the PG? It's a sweet, sincere, utterly affable kids' movie about how parents are all kinds of screwed up and unable to tell their kids what they want or show them how they feel. Read full review
58
Tampa Bay TimesSteve PersallDec 26, 2011
In telling someone else's story Crowe loses track of his own as a cultural definer, not a panderer. Mee bought a zoo; Crowe sells out. Read full review
55
MovielineAlison WillmoreDec 22, 2011
The film has the feel of something deeply conventional that Crowe, who's also credited as a screenwriter, has tried with very mixed success to punch up with personality. Read full review
50
Portland OregonianM. E. RussellDec 22, 2011
A modestly charming family crowd-pleaser despite too-broad characterizations by many in the supporting cast. Read full review
50
Boston GlobeTy BurrDec 22, 2011
A sweet-natured, terribly unthreatening drama about redemption and renewal, and it may matter more to the man who made it than the audiences who see it. Read full review
50
Austin ChronicleMarjorie BaumgartenDec 22, 2011
By trying too hard to stay on this side of hip and the other side of sentimental, Crowe winds up with a zoo that's neither fish nor fowl. Read full review
50
The A.V. ClubKeith PhippsDec 22, 2011
It's an odd, unsatisfying combination that moves from mopey drama one moment to a reaction shot of a monkey smacking his forehead in exasperation the next. By the end of the film, viewers might understand the monkey's feelings all too well. Read full review
50
VarietyRob NelsonNov 27, 2011
We Bought a Zoo is an odd bird, warm-blooded but largely lifeless. Read full review
42
ColliderMarco Vito OddoApr 5, 2023
There’s no way to hide the lack of substance in We Bought a Zoo, making it hard to justify returning to this decade-old film. Read full review
40
New York Daily NewsJoe NeumaierDec 22, 2011
"Field of Dreams" this ain't, and Crowe, whose "Jerry Maguire" and "Almost Famous" are justly held in high esteem, can't build the right frame here. It's neither fish nor fowl; a "guy-gets-his-life-right" rom-com runs smack into a "kids-with-animals" lark. Read full review
40
Boxoffice MagazineMark OlsenNov 30, 2011
An uneven mix of middle-age anxiety and family comedy. Read full review
30
SlateDan KoisDec 22, 2011
The realities that Crowe creates all seem like pleasant enough places to be, but you'd never mistake them for real life. The fuzzy, squishy world of We Bought a Zoo may be the Cameron Crowe-iest of them all. Read full review
30
TimeRichard CorlissDec 22, 2011
Crowe has made a meretricious weepie that rouges the facts and defeats the attempts of Matt Damon, with his considerable charm and skill, to breathe some emotional truth into it. There's a word for the strenuous, shameless plucking of an audience's emotions that this movie traffics in: cornography. Read full review
25
Slant MagazineNick SchagerDec 11, 2011
Far more concerned with pratfalling animal shenanigans and unearned uplift than crafting a single complex or amusing moment, it's a film caged in by formulaic plotting and plentiful pap. Read full review
More From This Movie

58 Critic Reviews

6.9 User Reviews

Details & Credits|Trailers

Current Movie Releases
By MetascoreBy User Score
1 81 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple
2 77 Project Hail Mary
3 75 Send Help
4 73 Hoppers
5 72 The Sheep Detectives
SEE ALL
Essential Links
New on Amazon Prime Video
New on Netflix
Coming Soon to DVD/Blu-ray
SEE ALL