Once upon a time filmmaker Cameron Crowe was a Hollywood wunderkind, making his screenwriting debut with the 80's classic "Fast Times At Ridgemont High" then going on to create films like "Say Anything...," "Singles," and "Jerry Maguire," each of them a heartfelt, fully realized cinematic snapshot of a very specific time and place. 2000's semi-autobiographical "Almost Famous," for which Crowe won a Best Original Screenplay Oscar, isn't his most recent feature, but it may as well be since his Amenábar remake "Vanilla Sky" is probably best forgotten, and 2005's atrocious "Elizabethtown" is watchable only after poking out all of your eyeballs and eardrums. But now, six years later and hot on the heels of Crowe's recent Pearl Jam documentary, comes his narrative Christmas gift, "We Bought A Zoo." Cynics will want to return it, or perhaps exchange it for something far less manipulatively corny.

In case you were wondering, "We Bought A Zoo" is about a guy who buys a zoo. The story is actually rooted in fact, based on a memoir by Benjamin Mee, a journalist who moved his family from France to England because he, you know, bought a zoo. In the movie version, however, the English countryside becomes a glowing Southern California, and Benjamin Mee is played by the equally incandescent Matt Damon. As "We Bought A Zoo" opens, Damon's Mee is dealing with life in the wake of his wife's death, which consists of an adorable young daughter, a crabby teen son, and scores of lipsticked predators hoping to comfort the mourning Mee with their seductive casseroles. So after being relegated to the blogosphere by his editor (blink and you'll miss Peter Riegert) and seeing his sticky-fingered son bounced from school, Mee decides it's time for a fresh start.

Forget that a writer with no obvious income probably wouldn't buy a new house, and ignore the absurdly long time that it takes for the realtor to mention that the purchase price includes a functioning wildlife park. Mee throws himself with gusto into the adventure, while the zoo's staff, including Scarlett Johansson as head zookeeper Kelly, eye the interloper with suspicion. The amazingly predictable script from Crowe and Aline Brosh McKenna saved you the trouble from having to write this one yourself, but you totally could have done it. Obnoxious bureaucrat threatening the future of the zoo? Check. Financial troubles with an out-of-the-blue solution? Yes. Wisdom from cute kids? Sure. Montages, montages, montages? You know it. Romance for both father and son? Of course, but not with the same female. That's a different kind of movie.

Oh, one more: belabored metaphor for Mee's grief in the form of an ailing tiger? Yup. But unless you're made of spare car parts, don't think you're immune to Crowe's uncanny ability to bring about the warm fuzzies. And I think he's mostly successful at it because Damon's Mee, like Crowe-tagonists Lloyd Dobler, Jerry Maguire, and Penny Lane before him, are ultimately guileless souls, perfectly willing to wear their hearts on their sleeves (or hoist boomboxes over their heads; basically whatever the occasion calls for). It's nearly impossible not to succumb to such uncomplicated passion, even with arms folded and "Yeah, right" scowl firmly in place. At this stage of the game, though, "We Bought A Zoo" can't help but feel like a stagnant move for Crowe, with the majority of film's characters and situations coming off as frustratingly one-dimensional.

Fortunately, the overqualified cast makes up for all that family-friendly simplicity by underplaying their stock roles, from the curly-topped Maggie Elizabeth Jones as Mee's moppet daughter to busy character actor John Michael Higgins, putting the "prick" in "prickly" as the humorless USDA inspector. (And that's underused "Almost Famous" star Patrick Fugit underneath the capuchin monkey.) Even the ubiquitous Johansson deglams a bit for her restrained performance, staying a respectful distance from the grieving widower with her pillow-lipped concern. And when the perpetually impressive Elle Fanning isn't stealing scenes as the quirky, sunny Lily, it's Damon's show. He looks quite regular-guy thanks to his awful haircut and slight spread, and he understands that the best way to avoid the pitfalls of cliché is to concentrate instead on the tiny truth that's inevitably contained therein, trusting that we'll be too choked up not to forgive him.