Don't pet them.
1997-01-23
$25.0M
93 min
Ex-policeman Rollo Lee is sent to run Marwood Zoo, the newly acquired business of a New Zealand tycoon. In order to meet high profit targets and keep the zoo open, Rollo enforces a new 'fierce creatures' policy, whereby only the most impressive and dangerous animals are allowed to remain in the zoo. However, the keepers are less enthusiastic about complying with these demands.
"Rollo" (John Cleese) is drafted in by his ruthless American boss "McCain" - no fries on him - to run a British zoo. His policy upon arrival is to get rid of all the cute and cuddly critters and leave just the menacing lions and tigers and bears! The staff are horrified, especially when some neat new graves appear after five resonating gunshots. The staff revolt and that convinces "McCain" (Kevin Kline) to send his son "Vince" (also CK) to take the helm with his savvy executive "Willa" (Jamie Lee Curtis) and pretty soon his new branding policy has just about everything sponsored, including the staff - but, of course, none of this is legit. We just know that the tortoise named after benefactor Bruce Springsteen is not likely to ever see the man. When it appears that "Vince" has his hand in the till, too, his father decides to be shot of all of these smelly beasts and just build a golf course. To that end, he arrives on scene to help his two underlings impress the would-be Japanese investors who have their eye on the place. It does have it's funny moments, but I reckon much of those will depend on your fondness for Cleese and his slapstick style of humour. His tall, gangly, appearance frequently being his principle prop - that his his character's innate crassness and stupidity. As the story evolves, we get a bit less of that and more of Kline's mischievous humour and of course Curtis, whom her pal things is interested in him romantically but she is far more enamoured of the zoo and then rather predictably... There's an entertaining supporting cast here - Robert Lindsay, fellow Python Michael Palin and Ronnie Corbett, and they and their animals add the "aah" factor the the thing making it watchable, but not really very memorable.
