We Bought a Zoo: Matt Damon-starring charming crowdpleaser comes to Disney+

We Bought a Zoo (PG, 124mins) Directed by Cameron Crowe ****

Whether interviewing dangerous dictators, or flying into the centre of hurricanes, writer Benjamin Mee (Matt Damon) always had a thirst for adventure.

However, nothing could prepare him for having to face life without his beloved wife, Katherine (Stephanie Szostak).

Six months after her death, teenage son Dylan (Colin Ford) has managed to get himself expelled from school and Benjamin is overwhelmed by the continuous offers of home- cooked meals and female companionship.

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With their next-door neighbours' "happy" being too loud, Benjamin decides they all, including seven-year-old daughter Rosie (Maggie Elizabeth Jones), could do with a change of scene.

After viewing countless properties, Benjamin falls in love with a rustic home set on seven hectares. Apart from being 30 kilometres from the nearest department store, there's just one catch – it's actually a former zoo.

Closed for two years, it has lions, a jaguar and 48 other species, many endangered, but it needs someone prepared to invest in it and take charge of it, or they and the remaining staff will be gone.

It's a challenge Benjamin is willing to take on, even though he has only four months to get the ageing structures up to spec in time for a summer opening, and his older brother, Duncan (Thomas Haden Church), openly questions his motives.

Main character reassesses his life? Check. Adorable poppet? Present. Kooky, winsome love interest? Affirmative. Tom Petty, Peter Gabriel and/or Neil Young on the soundtrack? You betcha.

Yes, there's no denying 2011’s We Bought A Zoo is a movie by Cameron Crowe and shares most if not all of the above DNA with Crowe crowd favourites such as Jerry Maguire, Elizabethtown and Almost Famous.

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.

After the maudlin navel- gazing of 2005's Elizabethtown, this movie marked a return to the character-driven love stories that served him so well in the past.

We Bought a Zoo is now streaming on Disney+.