‘Zootopia’ Review | Fox tha Police

Anthropomorphic animals have been a hit with children since Aesop was spinning yarns. I think we’ve all basically come to accept them now. Bipedal geckos sell us car insurance. Hat-enthusiast bears discourage forest fires. It’s an amusing artistic conceit but not one that makes a heck of a lot of sense if you think about it too hard.

So Disney, in their infinite wisdom, thought about it too hard and came up with Zootopia. The new CG-animated film takes place in an alternate reality in which humans never evolved, and where animals of different species became more human-like to take our place. In a way, it is an example of our ultimate hubris. Zootopia posits that mankind’s resource-sucking, urban sprawling global influence is so vital to the ecosystem that without us, all the other species would need to band together, just to invent the iPhone.

Predator and prey live side-by-side in Zootopia, but it’s an uneasy alliance. Police rabbits racially profile foxes so much that they follow seemingly peaceful vulpeses into ice cream parlors just in case they start something. That’s a pretty harsh reality to creep into an animated kids movie about cute widdle aminals who listen to Shakira and learn to get along.

Disney Animation

Also: Ginnifer Goodwin on a Zootopia/Once Upon a Time Crossover (Exclusive Video)

So let’s give credit where credit is due: Zootopia teems with sight gags and puns and pop culture references, but it’s all an excuse to use the buddy cop genre they way it was always intended, as a form of social commentary. A female bunny named Judy Hopps (Ginnifer Goodwin) is the first of her kind on the force, and eager to prove herself. She takes on a case bigger than her diminutive breeches when she agrees to find a missing person in just 48 hours, so she teams up with a streetwise fox named Nicholas Wilde (Jason Bateman), a guy who didn’t want to become a criminal but decided it was easier to conform to cultural expectations of his race/species than to fight against them.

An optimistic female rabbit and a cynical male fox may be the platonic ideal of mismatched partners (move over Red Heat!), and they are the best part about Zootopia. The detail that directors Byron Howard, Rich Moore and co-director Jared Bush pump into the backgrounds is entertaining, but eventually it all fades away and all we have left is our emotional involvement with a hero who is trying to be the best she can be, and an anti-hero who gave up on trying years ago. Goodwin and Bateman are perfectly cast, and the moments when Judy and Nick simply talk to one another are the best – and the best-animated – parts of the film.

The biggest problem with Zootopia is inherent to its own concept: the plot is a police story, and not always an interesting one. A creaky extended reference to The Godfather falls completely flat, and the final clue that ties the mystery together only comes together through contrivance. If Zootopia wan’t so committed to playing like a real cop movie then it wouldn’t be a problem if it whiffed on some of the tropes, but it is, and it is.

Disney Animation

Also: The Directors of Zootopia Explain Who the Carnivores Are Allowed to Eat (Exclusive Video)

And if Zootopia wasn’t so committed to figuring out every detail of its anthropomorphic culture, it wouldn’t raise nearly so many distracting questions about how it works. If all animals are created equal, and equality is the theme of the movie, why are none of the romantic relationships between different species? Nick references the Bible, which begs the question: which animal died for all of the others’ sins? And when Nick gets into trouble for selling a rug made from the butt of a skunk, which of Zootopia’s skunk citizens did he have to murder and flay in order to make it?

Zootopia isn’t perfect, but only because it was ambitious enough to try. It’s hard to find serious fault with that. It tries to be a real cop movie, and comes up a little short. It tries to think out every detail of an anthropomorphic animal society, and comes up a little short. It tries to be a salient social commentary about racism, sexism and isms in general, and it’s almost thought-provoking. It tries to be the best Disney animated movie, and it doesn’t quite get there. But it’s a heck of a lot better to pounce at greatness and only just miss it than it is to wallow in low expectations.

 


William Bibbiani (everyone calls him ‘Bibbs’) is Crave’s film content editor and critic. You can hear him every week on The B-Movies Podcast and watch him on the weekly YouTube series Most Craved and What the Flick. Follow his rantings on Twitter at @WilliamBibbiani.

 

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