Zootopia

I remember going to the zoo when I was a kid.  It was always loud and noisy and smelled of animal feces.  The best part of those visits was seeing the animals interact with each other and make noises.  I wish Disney’s latest feature had been more like that and would give audiences a look inside what it’s like to live inside a zoo.  Zootopia is a film about a bunny named Judy Hops who wants very desperately to be a cop because she hates the idea of being a carrot farmer.  She finishes the police academy and is assigned to the city of Zootopia as a meter maid because only apex predators take on actual criminal cases.  Judy slyly makes herself an advocate for taking on a missing person’s case but she has to solve it in two days or she’s out of the police force.  She gathers some evidence and realizes that the last place the person went was to buy frozen popsicles.  She interviews the vendor of the popsicles, a fox named Nick Wyle and blackmails him into helping her solve the case.

Zootopia is a very well animated feature.  The comedy that occurs when Judy Hop is exposed to different animals of different species.  Specifically, there’s a scene involving sloths at the DMV that is hysterical as it serves as the perfect metaphor for anyone’s experience at the DMV.  All of the characters in Zootopia are unique and funny but where the film fails is it hammers home the moral message of accepting others far too often for it not to be immensely distracting.  The issue is raised at the beginning of the film when Judy is assaulted for standing up to bullies who have stolen from smaller defenseless animals.  The issue is confronted again when Judy Hops is stereotyped for only being capable of performing a job as a meter maid.  The stereotyping of “stronger” and “weaker” animals is continued throughout the film and I just sat there thinking we get it there is an unfair balance not only in the animal kingdom but in our world as a whole.  While I think the message of Zootopia is an important one and needs to be spread I’m not confident children will value the lesson because it’s preached to them through the writing of the story rather than subtly demonstrated as the story progresses.

In Frozen, to demonstrate that Anna didn’t need a man to save the day they subtly showed throughout the film, Frozen focused on the connection between the two sisters and their bond being stronger than any other relationship in the film.  In contrast, Zootopia goes out of its way to show how different species dislike each other or don’t work well together and many times throughout the film that prejudice feels forced.  There are however a handful of great moments when the film does succeed in spreading its message.  The conference scene after they figure out animals have been altered from their original state is quite strong as well as Nick’s story from his own childhood of not being accepted by others is deeply emotional.  If the film carefully chose more of those moments the film would have been great rather than just good.  I will applaud Disney for attempting to put all of those issues into their story as that is no easy feat.

Overall Zootopia is a fun film but the way the writers handled demonstrating the issues of acceptance and tolerance the animals face felt on the nose a bit too often for this film to be superb.  Kids will love it though and will likely want to visit their local zoo in the near future.