*MINOR SPOILERS*
“Disney made this movie?” Was the first thing that came out of my mouth as I began watching this film. By no means a bad thing, but I did not see that one coming.
Zootopia is a 2016 animated/adventure film produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios and released by Walt Disney Pictures, while being directed by Byron Howard and Rich Moore. Zootopia stars an ensemble cast voiced by Ginnifer Goodwin, Jason Bateman, Idris Elba, Jenny Slate, J. K. Simmons, Shakira, and many more. The film follows an unlikely partnership between a rabbit police officer and a red fox con artist as they uncover a conspiracy that involves the disappearance of predator inhabitants of a mammalian metropolis.
What a heavy film, I must say. Behind all the cute (if I can use that word) animals, and comedic dialog, this film has some hard hitting issues about segregation, racism, and discrimination. We see a lot of this from start to finish, and I almost feel like Disney had their own agenda for this film. Moving on, I must say that this film had some absolutely great characters. Each person we meet in the film has their own little story arc, from Judy Hopps down to even Fru Fru (the daughter of Mr. Big). Disney did such a good job at making each character seem important, and I applaud them for that. Also, I would like to quickly add that Jason Bateman’s character was by far one of my favorite Disney characters to date. Bravo.
Not only was this film well acted, but the heart of the entire movie is its animation; and boy is it fantastic. There are a few scenes where we see our characters dripping wet, and the look of everything just looks flawless. Another great feat in this film is the use of scale. We see many different sizes of characters, and yet the scale looks pretty accurate, to say the least. To go into specifics, there is a scene where Judy Hopps is chasing Duke Weaselton through the mouse district (?). The use of scale throughout this scene shows that even though this rabbit is now a giant, the city in the background still shows that she isn’t as large as you may think. I know that’s hard to explain, but if you saw the scene you’d understand what I’m saying. Now I had to include this as it made me laugh so damn hard, but those Godfather, and Breaking Bad references.. Holy hell, as soon as Mr. Big was introduced I could not contain myself. Dammit Disney, you know how to make a movie for both kids and adults! That is awesome.
Now although this movie had its ups, it definitely had its downs. The first major issue I had with this film was with some of the exposition. Yeah, the opening scene kinda tells the story of how they’ve become a society, yet it never actually explains why they decided to become civil. Because they all wanted to accomplish their dreams? Nope, not good enough for me. It wasn’t a huge issue, at least not for the younger audience, but for me it felt left out. Out of the entire film, there was only one issue I felt brought this film down a grade level on theVade Review Bar, and that was the reasoning behind Wilde (the fox) and Hopps (the bunny) breaking off their friendship. It seemed forced, and had no real value. There is really no relation as to what Hopps said at the press conference for Wilde to get angry at her, and like I said before, it just felt extremely forced. This ultimately affected the scene when Hopps comes back to Wilde, which evoked no emotion from me. There are a bunch of other minor issues, like lack of good parenting from Hopps’ parents, and the ability for Hopps to read a book and then become the greatest police officer at the academy. Just minor things, but still affected the film in the end.
To sum things up, Zootopia was another great Disney film, and the better of the few that they’ve made in the past decade. Yes, Disney and Pixar are two DIFFERENT entities. So to conclude, I decide to give Zootopia a “Good” on theVade Review Bar. The film had fantastic characters, animation, and adult (semi) references, but its lack of clarification on its exposition, and forced relationship issues just bogged down the movie a little too much, to the point where I felt the need to dock the movie for those issues. In the end Zootopia is one of Disney’s most political movies I’ve ever seen, but the use of fluffy little animals still doesn’t give it enough momentum to make a change in the real world. It does make for a good kids movie, though.
