[Movie Review] Zootopia (2016)

Posted on March 2, 2016 by thegrandshuckett in Movie Reviews // 0 Comments

Directors: Bryon Howard, Rich Moore, Jared Bush

Writers: Jared Bush, Phil Johnston

Runtime: 108 min

Main Cast:

Ginnifer Goodwin as Judy Hopps (voice)
Jason Bateman as Nick Wilde (voice)
Idris Elba as Chief Bogo (voice)
Jenny Slate as Bellwether (voice)

Review: by Marie and Faith

All animated movies have had deep morals behind them, whether its about overcoming fears or learning to be yourself. But recently the messages have been a lot louder and more relevant to contemporary society. There’s the commentary on caring for the environment in WALL-E and now Zootopia takes on issues of identity and race. Frozen showed it can bring in the crowd like Pixar’s Toy Story franchise, and now Disney Studios newest release Zootopia, proves it can also be a family-friendly tale with a strong built-in message.

Zootopia is set in a world where prey and predator live in harmony. The animals have pretty much evolved to have human characteristics and live in their own Metropolis call Zootopia.

To start the movie off we are introduced to a bunny named Judy Hopps (Ginnifer Goodwin) as a young bunny who is determined to be a “bunny cop.” Her parents try to make her understand that her having big dreams is not only healthy or ok and that she should just stay home on their farm to be what most bunnies are, “farmer bunnies.” The movie jumps forward about 15 years later where we see Judy training to be a cop. She graduates at the top of her class and then is stationed at the center of Zootopia, a melting pot of species large and small. Before Judy heads off to the big city, her father gives her fox repellent. After offering fatherly advice about why foxes can’t be trusted, Judy takes the repellent and heads off. Though this may not seem like an important scene it actually is a key part in the entire plot of the movie.

As Zootopia Police Department’s sole bunny officer, Judy Hopps discovers that fitting in wasn’t going to be easy, especially when the other cops in the force are mainly elephant, rhino and hippo. Even though intrepid Judy can’t wait to collar her first perp, Bogo (Idris Elba), Precinct 1’s gruff cape buffalo police chief, has other plans, which assigns Judy to “Parking Duty.” Eventually Bogo gives Judy a greenlight to do some big time police work which is when she finds herself partnering up with Nick Wilde (Jason Bateman), a sly, world-weary scam artist fox, in a 48-hour bid to break a missing persons case. While Goodwin and Bateman are a voice-cast dream team come true as a dysfunctional duo who learn to follow their instincts; the duo is also joined by a nicely diverse supporting cast that also includes J.K. Simmons, Tommy Chong, Octavia Spencer and Shakira as a gazelle pop star who performs the films orginal song “Try Everything.” Also making their lines count are Jenny Slates as the no-so-sheepish sheep who serves as Zootopia’s predator-averse assistant mayor and Maurice LaMarsh as an arctic shrew version of Don Coleone named Mr. Big.

What We Liked:

One of our favorite scenes in this movie was when they introduced the character Mr. Big. Assuming the character was going to be a large and vicious animal, it was without doubt hilarious to see just a shrew who was not only imitating perfectly, “The Godfather,” but was also surrounded by his humongous polar bear body guards and people all around seemed to fear this tiny animal. Other than the funny scenes introduced in this movie it was nice to see that the movie can actually teach children something about diversity and following their dreams no matter what.

What We Didn’t Like:

Really this entire movie was great. There was simply nothing “unloving” about any of it. If we had to speak on anything it would be when they acknowledge in the movie that some of the animals were naked. To us really it was all innocent humor. During the course of the film, there was nothing that swayed your attention from the importance of the film, which is why it makes an excellent family movie.

Summary

Movies should be an escape from the outside world we live in and “Zootopia” is filled with incredible computer animation, very funny jokes and wonderful characters. But it will also help young people today to have some reality seep into the content they regularly consume every day. What’s even better is that “Zootopia” isn’t scared to raise issues, even highly sensitive ones. Hopefully we all keep away from knee-jerk reactions on “why” a cartoon is doing this and instead absorb it’s all and educate our kids in the matter. “Zootopia” is much a commentary on race and bigotry as it is a fun romp through an imaginary world.

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