In Walt Disney Animation's newest family romp, Zootopia, we follow the story of Judy Hopps (voiced by Ginnifer Goodwin), an optimistic and positive up beat bunny who dreams of becoming a cop in Zootopia, a city inhabited by anthropomorphic animals of all kinds where the smallest mouse to the largest elephant can be anything from a restaurant server to the CEO of a major company. Once Judy achieves her goal of being a police officer in Zootopia, she is at first given small, boring, non-risky jobs such as parking duty. That is until she comes across a case of a missing otter, to which of course she hops to immediately. With the help of the fast-talking and sly con artist, Nick Wilde (voiced by Jason Bateman), who is a fox, a bunny's natural enemy, Judy must crack the case in order to prove she is worth more what others give her credit for. Now judging from this premise you might think that this will be a standard animated family comedy, with cute animals and decent laughs. But really it's a film that it's a little bit more than that. It boldly and cleverly illustrates social issues that are very relevant today that will resonate both with children and adults, while still telling a cute, inventive, and fun story with entertaining and lovable characters.
Judy Hopps is the type of character that could have gone wrong really fast. She could have been that type of character that is the optimistic goody two shoes that we get a million times over again in many movies But what makes her character separate from those other ones is that Judy is a lot more layered. Though she is kind and positive, she has her limits, she knows methods that will help her meet her sometimes selfish needs, and she does make mistakes, even huge, maybe accidentally, friendship ruining ones. The kind in where she thinks she knows what she's doing, but really its due to subconscious instinct. Nick Wilde is a fun and charismatic character. Come to think of it, we never really had a main Disney lead, one who usually is the center of good ethics and morals, be a con artist. Wilde is kind of a refreshing character in that sense. Plus with Jason Bateman's entertaining performance, the character does indeed come alive and delivers some funny lines to keep the audience laughing. Again, he could have easily been the typical con artist, but like Judy, he has several layers to him as well that makes him three-dimensional. Like many Disney movies, there is a particular scene in the movie which involves him that will make even the most sour of curmudgeons shed a tear. There are other entertaining characters the movie provides voiced by the likes of Jenny Slate, J.K Simmons, and even Idris Elba that have surprises to them as well. Without spoiling anything, I will say who the supposed villain of the movie is, like Frozen, is kind of an initial disappointment. One because it's kind of hard seeing that character as a villain, and two, even though the film is a mystery case, where the antagonist isn't revealed till the final act, the build up is kind of a let down. Though this is not supposed to be like traditional Disney movies we know and love like Sleeping Beauty, Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, and Aladdin, I kind of miss those traditional dark villains we had in those. I wish this movie would have something like that again. But when you start to realize that this movie's main focus is in it's story set up as well as its moral, which I will get into soon, you'll appreciate at least that aspect of the movie was done extremely well.
Because it is Disney, of course the animation is beautiful. I've said it time again, whether talking about Disney Animation or Pixar, their animation quality just gets better with each film. The animation is truly allowed to be vibrant and creative, because of this movie's setting. With all the different animals, their shapes, sizes, and fur count, the animation shows off how real-life looking they can seem, as well as give them distinguished body language and movements. But the animation really makes the city of Zootopia itself the star of the entire movie. This really shows when during the beginning of the movie, Judy is on a train as it travels through the different boroughs of the city, all which have different landscapes such as desert, savanna, tundra, and rain forest. The city is just so creatively designed and fun to watch. Scenes which include the rain forest borough, and a chase scene through a little rodent village are by far the standouts of the film in terms of animation and creative set up.
Now back to the overall story of Zootopia, it is indeed a fun buddy cop comedy that both children and adults can enjoy. But also they can take away a little something else from this movie as well. A message that granted has been told a lot, but is still relevant and still needs to be addressed. This movie provides messages about bullying, tolerance, prejudice, racism, sexism, any other way you want to interpret it as and illustrates these issues in a smart and REAL way. There are scenes in this movie I couldn't believe mirrored our own reality when it came to these topics. You wouldn't think with the use of cute animals and some jokes thrown in, we would get a movie like this. There are definitely Disney movies like say Beauty and the Beast, Pocahontas, and The Hunchback of Notre Dame that deal with issues like tolerance, prejudice, and ignorance while those movies presented them okay to great in their own methods, Zootopia takes advantage that it is set in a setting similar to our own present day, and strives to mirror relevant images and issues. It even goes deeper than that once the plot of the antagonist is revealed and you eventually see the what this mystery is leading up to. Trust me, once you REALLY think about it, it's deep. Heck, by giving a little hint, it mirrors criticisms and possible proven theories of the America's Reagan era. If you know what I'm talking about..yeah...THAT! We probably needed this movie now more than ever...especially when a controversial certain Republican candidate is leading the polls. One who coincidentally shares the same first name as Disney's most famous duck, and whose name rhymes with "rump". But anyways, while being a smart movie that bravely addresses relevant and controversial social issues, Zootopia still succeeds in being a fun, cute, creative, buddy cop mystery movie starring animals that the whole family can enjoy. It's a great movie that delivers what it promises, while at the same time going above and beyond.
95/100
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