Movie Thoughts: Zoo (2017)

• Released: October 14th, 2017
• Directed by: Colin McIvor
• Running time: 1h 37min
• Rating 3.5/5

Synopsis

A boy named Tom and his friends secretly look after an elephant calf, called Buster, during World War II.

My Thoughts

Not perfect, but I overall liked this movie. It's got some dark moments, but the message of people finding each other and sticking together for a greater purpose was pretty wholesome. 

I liked our main characters a lot, and they're all distinct and interesting. I especially liked that old lady, Denise, who lost everything and found comfort in animals, and in this way ended up befriending the kids and helped them look after Buster. Good stuff.

The movie also can get very dark, like I said, though, being a war movie. So do be prepared for that. One of our main characters does end up biting the dust and I didn't see it coming at all. And even aside from that, just the dark atmosphere of the movie and most of the zoo animals being murdered... dark stuff.

But it does make up for it by having our main characters form a genuinely very close friendship as they all work towards protecting and looking after Buster. I do feel bad for the elephant calf, as he was living in bad conditions and didn't have any other elephants to bond with, but of course these kids and Denise were doing the best that they could with the means that they'd been given, obviously.

Just a pretty solid movie. It does tug on the heartstrings quite a bit, but also has moments of levity and friendship to make up for it.