ZOOTOPIA (2016)

ZOOTOPIA (2016)

Tagline: Welcome to the urban jungle.

(Animation, Adventure, Crime) [PG]

Life isn't some cartoon musical where you sing a little song and all your insipid dreams magically come true. So let it go.

In this one, we are introduced to a world where animals are all tame and now they have built their own society called Zootopia. It’s divided up into sections, including one for small animals, one is a jungle, etc. A rabbit named Judy Hopps (voiced by Ginnifer Goodwin, most famous for being Snow White in the TV show “Once Upon A Time”), decides she wants to be a cop. This is complicated by the fact that rabbits just don’t get to be cops in this animated world. She mostly gives out traffic tickets after joining the force but is determined to take on a “missing Otter case” that leads down some of the darkest paths in Zootopia. Along the way, she ends up teaming up with Nick Wilde (voiced by Jason Bateman) who is a Fox. The one animal we are told at the beginning of the story that can’t be trusted by rabbits. 

Oh man, I really wasn’t expecting this storyline when I started watching this thing. In this movie, Zootopia is made up of all kinds of animals that wear clothes and walk and talk, etc. That means you have predators living with prey, so when things start to go haywire in this movie, it takes a dark turn for a Disney flick directed at kids. I personally was expecting to be all fluff. While this movie is loaded with clever ideas (like animal versions of a lot of human things including Lucky Charms being called Lucky Chomps) and Zootopia itself is well thought out, it is still a city that needs cops and has its seedy areas, including an animal nudist club, a mafia-like syndicate and basically a lighter version of drugs. I don’t want to give too much away but I think this movie does a decent job of hitting on adult themes while still making a movie that is kid accessible. 

I can see where this movie made some feel empowered because of its underlying themes, and that is awesome, but in that respect, it’s got basically the same general “anyone can do anything” and “I shouldn’t have pre-judged you based on who or what you were born” message that billions of other movies do. From a message perspective, this is Disney 101. I do think it’s cool that Nick Wilde’s character is a ton like ROBIN HOOD from Disney’s animated version of that film, which came out the year I was born, so that was a plus for me. There is a part of me that felt this movie was edgy for its target audience but it’s all handled fairly well. For instance, there is an animal nudist club in the movie, but all animals unless you put clothes on them are nude already. They make it look risky in the world the movie presents, but in real life it's reality.  

ZOOTOPIA is a good Disney movie with fantastic animation. Having said that the storyline is pretty cookie cutter and there isn’t as much humor as you would expect from a movie a lot of people are saying is a comedy. It’s not a movie I see myself going back to time and time again to be amazed by. I actually checked out a few times due to slow predictable parts watching this, knowing I was doing a review (so I had to go back and watch those scenes again). I do see myself giving it a re-watch maybe after another installment. 

For those reasons, I give ZOOTOPIA a 4 out of 7. It’s pretty solid, but we’ve been down this road story-wise before. 

GRAPHICS ARE THE PROPERTY OF WALT DISNEY PICTURES AND ARE USED FOR REVIEW PURPOSES ONLY.