Zoo

Mutating Wild Kingdom into a subversive fun-time apoca-thriller, Zoo is a worthy small-screen complement to a Jurassic World summer.

Zoo could have been silly, over-the-top fun, but instead it’s plodding and monotonous.

It's all great fun, especially for those of us who have not read the book and so do not know if there is a clever cause or a nifty solution. Even if there is not, we get to watch a solid cast work its way through this latest spin on a classic tale, while keeping a wary eye on our own pets.

If you’re willing to suspend enough disbelief to enjoy Zoo, you will definitely think twice before ever again saying, “Here, kitty, kitty.”

If only the humans in Zoo were as compelling as their four-legged antagonists!

As with many a Patterson thriller, the breathless pace and spine-tingling what-ifs make it easy to get caught up despite your well-founded reservations.

Sure, it's summer and the viewing is easy--and Zoo is about as easy as it gets. There is some fun here, or potentially some fun.

There's potential here, especially if it's not burdened with biological mumbo jumbo that makes little sense in explaining why these animals are going ape on humans. But even that potential is only that of a Patterson novel: cheap, easy to digest, and you don't have to think all that much about it.

We can suspend disbelief when watching “Jurassic World” because it’s dinosaurs, but when the predators are zoo animals, it’s a greater challenge to take seriously.

If there's a breakout star in Zoo, though, it's probably the state of Louisiana, which does an astonishingly good impression of the African veldt that's used to excellent effect. Using little in the way of computer-generated effects, Zoo is a striking example of how much a talented director of photography can achieve with just his cameras.

It’s a snooze. And it’s disappointingly dull filmically given that Brad Anderson directed the pilot. Like Wolk and Connolly, Anderson deserved a better script. You do too.

CBS’ Zoo has more than enough edge-of-your-seat drama to make it feel like the television equivalent of great summer beach reading.

Zoo has 13 hours, and many more animals, to make some sense of its zany story, but the leaden dialogue is almost certainly to make that seem much, much longer.

Its premise simply isn’t interesting enough to sustain the intrigue over the course of a television season.

Zoo is fun, escapist fare. The kind of show that will make you want to pop some popcorn and plop down on the couch.

The story will grab you, as we slowly see the animals begin asserting their control and the humans at a total loss as to what to do about it.

Zoo is expertly made and fits the current fascination with dystopian what-if scenarios, but it’s basic.

The first episode gets us in the mood for the TV equivalent of a beach read adventure..... [James Wolk] easily rises to the task, making Jackson charming, sympathetic, and capable. Though Zoo may turn out to be more silly than sensational, Wolk is always delightful TV company.

While the pilot script excels in efficient plot building, it lags in dialogue and character development.

It's all so groaningly obvious and B-movie earnest you'd almost welcome a Sharknado attack. [29 Jun - 12 Jul 2015, p.12]

Zoo very much spares the gore in its less than scintillating but better than lackluster opening hour.

There's nothing particularly special about Zoo, but were we back in the days when books like this became self-contained miniseries, it would be easy enough to recommend as a non-taxing summer potboiler.

Zoo might build toward something more satisfying, but based on the premiere, there’s not particularly strong incentive to take the bait.

A laughably over-serious pilot episode makes it difficult to take Zoo on its own terms.