Crowe’s film doesn’t love animals the way it should and never acknowledges the intangible way in which animals affect humans.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Mar 6, 2023

...a movie that’s full of forced sentiment and familiar themes that play out exactly as they have in countless other films.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Aug 21, 2022

The wonderful interactions and work with the animal co-stars is well done, but it's only effective window dressing to the real project.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jun 26, 2022

is a sunny, lightweight, crowd-pleasing film of a kind that doesnt get made anymore

| Original Score: 3/5 | Feb 20, 2022

While the cynical reviewers might ponder why it couldn't have been a farm instead, Cameron Crowe's latest is a tolerable chapter in the personal life of its director.

| May 5, 2021

While many will accuse his adaptation of the real-life British story of the Mees' takeover of Dartmoor Zoological Park as being manipulative and formulaic, there's something warm and uplifting about Crowe's tale of moving on after tragedy.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 7, 2020

Too lighthearted and silly for its own good.

| Original Score: 3/10 | Nov 30, 2020

It's a sure reminder that Crowe remains one of America's best directors when it comes to the everyday experiences involved in being human.

| Original Score: 3.0/4.0 | Sep 26, 2020

We Bought A Zoo...lions and tigers and bears! Oh my!

| Nov 26, 2019

What you see in the title is all you will get from this soft-hearted, yet level-headed family movie. And that's exactly all the target audience needs from such middle-of-the-road fare.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 23, 2019

"Zoo" rarely feels authentic -- it's the kind of film that relies on the soundtrack to direct the audience how it is supposed to feel.

| Original Score: C | May 7, 2019

The result is something that's hard to buy on almost every level.

| Original Score: C | Feb 8, 2019

Memo to Cameron Crowe: You can't just put a cute kid in a movie and think that's enough to sell the audience on it.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Jan 4, 2019

As it stands, the animals may be restored to their former glory at Rosemoor, but the humans deserve better.

| Dec 20, 2018

Crowe seems unable to layer up the story's sentimentalism with anything subtler than an industrial dumper truck.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Dec 19, 2018

Everything is, indeed, tied up exactly the way you know it will be tied up, because it is that sort of film, but it still provides a perfectly agreeable way to spend the two hours you weren't going to do anything with anyway.

| Aug 31, 2018

Unlike frenetic movies focused on the next laugh, this tender film does not aim at children and hope to bring adults along. Rather, it offers something for each member of the family, blending a sad but ultimately hopeful storyline and some cute animals.

| Mar 21, 2018

We Bought a Zoo won't change your life, but it will provide two hours of lovely, slightly whimsical escapism.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 6, 2017

We Bought a Zoo certainly wins this year's prize for most mediocre, heartwarming family film to win over audiences this holiday season.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Sep 1, 2017

Crowe's emotional maturity is Benjamin Button, aging in reverse. Unfortunately, this means that We Bought a Zoo is an excruciating film for anyone not wearing rose-colored glasses.

| Aug 9, 2017