The most recent installment in the Disney renaissance, Zootopia, is also easily their most timely and political. Basically the movie could be described as “let’s talk about racism with animals,” but like the best animated movies it mixes social subtext with genuinely hilarious moments and interesting characters.
Zootopia starts on an elementary school play starring rabbit Judy Hopps (Gennifer Goodwin) about how animals became anthropomorphic. She dreams of becoming a police office one day despite her parents’ objections and the fact that a rabbit has never become a cop. Despite this, she graduates at the top of her class and is assigned to district one of Zootopia, a city where animals of all kinds, predator and prey, can live together in peace. However, she is assigned to parking duty since her boss, Captain Bogo (Idris Elba), a water buffalo, doesn’t believe she can make it as a real cop since she’s a rabbit.
However, she is able to finally pick up a case involving predators who have gone missing. She is tasked with finding an otter who is one of the missing. She coerces the help of a con-man fox named Nick Wilde (Jason Bateman) to help her in the case.
The narrative itself would be enough to make the movie a good entry in the Disney cannon. It features smart writing, incredible visuals that make the world come to life, and great central characters that spit off banter like the best procedurals on TV — though much credit has to be given to Goodwin and Bateman on their voice work. However, it’s the fact the the movie doesn’t shy away from a political subtext that makes it a great, and maybe even the best, movie in this new age of Disney.
Throughout the movie, there are eerily familiar parallels to real life, like a lion running for mayor with a sheep on the ticket to shore up the prey vote or a sheep yelling, “go back to the forest, predator” to a cheetah who replies, “I’m from the Savannah!” or a rabbit mother moving her child closer to her when a lion gets on board a train. Maybe for adults the racial subtext is a little bit obvious, but what’s more important is that it trusts that its younger audience will pick up on its message of inclusion and the danger of stereotypes.
Past the racial commentary, the movie – like Frozen – features a female central character whose main storyline doesn’t involve a romantic interest or dream to find true love. Her dream is to be a police officer despite the adversity she encounters.
As a comedy, there are moments of just brilliance. At the center of that is a scene involving sloths at the DMV and incredible spoofs of Breaking Bad and The Godfather. It is moments like that that prove that animated movies don’t have to be made either for kids or adults. It could be both.
Zootopia may be a “kid’s” movie, but its message is one that garners a high-level of thought. It comments on prejudice in a time of fear and calls for peace and tolerance instead of panic. It couldn’t seem more timely with the recent rash xenophobia and racism that has plagued our country. Zootopia may not change the world, but it can at least teach our children that we should not succumb to fear, but instead work together toward peace.
8.5/10
Get Zootopia on DVD, BluRay, or digitally over on Amazon!
Hey, I'm Karl, founder and film critic at Smash Cut. I started Smash Cut in 2014 to share my love of movies and give a perspective I haven't yet seen represented. I'm also an editor at The New York Times, a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, and a member of the Online Film Critics Society.