Benjamin Mee’s (Matt Damon) life is a disaster.  His wife recently passed away, which left him not only trying to cope with his own grief but also left him dealing with raising his two young children, Dylan (Colin Ford) and Rosie (Maggie Elizabeth Jones).  He’s forced to stop galavanting off on amazing adventures and writing about them. Instead, he has to stay home to take care of his kids and figure out a way to prove that everything will be okay.

Things get even more complicated when Dylan is expelled from his school due to his disturbing drawings and unacceptable behavior.  That’s not even to mention that Benjamin is so haunted by the memories of his deceased wife that he can’t even enter half of the places in town.  With his brother, Duncan (Thomas Hayden Church), pushing him to move on and more problems arising from his job, Benjamin decides to quit his job rather than write a pity column. So, what does Benjamin decide to do?  Move his family into a new house away from their old problems and haunting memories.

While house hunting with young Rosie, they come across a beautiful house with a great landscape.  There’s one catch, though, it’s an old, unsuccessful zoo that has just about reached bankrupcy.  The loyal staff hasn’t been paid in quite some time, but they stay to take care of the animals.  The problem is that Benjamin can’t buy the property without also inheiriting the unfortunate, financially-burdening responsibility of running the zoo as well.

Benjamin decides that running a failing zoo is too much to handle and decides to look at houses elsewhere.  Rosie, on the other hand, finds a few peacocks and other animals that she begins to feed and play with.  When Benjamin sees his young, innocent daughter playing and laughing with the animals, he realizes that this zoo might be exactly what his family needs to heal from the loss of his wife and finally move on, so he bought a zoo.

Despite Rosie and Benjamin’s enthusiasm about the new home, Dylan carries his angry attitude and continues to cause problems with his father, who quickly realizes that buying a zoo might have been more than he could handle.  Despite the help of the loyal staff, especially Kelly Foster (Scarlett Johansson), the zoo is quickly heading for bankrupcy and struggling to meet the zoo inspections conducted by the wacky zoo inspector.

With the pending zoo inspection, the lack of financial stability, constant problems, and the fast-approaching opening day, Benjamin and the zoo staff wonder if they can pull off such an enormous feat.

In the middle of the chaos, Benjamin says, “You know, sometimes all you need is twenty seconds of insane courage. Just literally twenty seconds of just embarrassing bravery, and I promise you, something great will come of it.”  The words of wisdom prove to be almost a theme of the movie since there are always difficult problems arising.

Benjamin, his kids, and the zoo staff all work hard for the common goal of a successful zoo, but there are plenty of problems along the way.  For example, when the exotic snakes are released all over the zoo grounds, when Solomon, the beloved lion, is reaching the end of his life, when Benjamin can’t seem to let the memory of his wife go, when the zoo might not make inspection, when Dylan realizes that he might just like Lily (Elle Fanning),  and when a relationship starts to develop between Benjamin and Kelly.

This movie is one of the best movies I have seen in a long time.  I saw it with my family and my little brother loved it just as much as my parents and I did.  It’s just the perfect movie for anyone of any age.  There were times when the pain and heartache resulting from Katherine Mee’s (Stephanie Szostak) death made me tear up, but there were also times of such joy that I found myself smiling while watching the film.

The characters were extremely relatable, down-to-earth, and well-casted.  Jones was the perfect actress to play the role of Rosie; she was adorable and played the part wonderfully given that she’s really only seven years old.  Even Damon was able to produce a quality role outside of his typical action flick.

Overall, the movie was spectacular and I would recommend it to anyone.  Whether you see it with your parents, your siblings, your best friend, or your significant other, I bet that you will enjoy it.

This film is rated PG.