[yasr_overall_rating]
In a city of anthropomorphic animals, a fugitive con artist fox and a rookie bunny cop must work together to uncover a conspiracy.
“Don’t call me cute,” Judy, the bunny protagonist (voiced by Ginnifer Goodwin) proclaims at one point in Disney’s latest animated spectacle, “Zootopia.” “A bunny can call another bunny cute, but when another animal does it…” She trails off, letting the kids in the audience giggle and gush, while their parents reflect on racial intolerance and appreciate the sly way the gag/political message was interpreted into the scene. This approach pretty much summarizes directors’ Byron Howard and Rich Moore’s energetic tale, which is crammed to the brim with sharp humor, laugh out-loud visual gags and relevant themes, but still manages to adhere to Hollywood’s laws of narrative structure, with some of the bootlicking and predictability that comes with it. In other words, a little more “The Talented Mr. Fox” – or even “Rango” – and a little less “Madagascar” wouldn’t have hurt.
“Zootopia” takes place in an alternate universe, where humans (presumably) never evolved, and neither – presumably – did anyone but mammals, who did evolve past their differences and grew to get along… to an extent. Judy, a young bunny living in a remote farm town called Bunnyborrow (the population of which keeps steadily rising), dreams of working for the Zootopia Police Department (ZDP), yet her friends and family don’t support her ambitions. “You know how your mom and I remained so happy?” her father Stu (Don Lake) relates dryly about his relationship with Bonnie (Bonnie Hunt). “We gave up on our dreams and we settled.”
Fifteen years later, fueled by everyone’s scorn, Judy aces the Zootopia Police Academy Training, fighting and climbing and clawing her way to the 1st Rabbit Officer position. Before departing to the Big City, Judy is warned by her folks about predators… especially foxes. Stu and Bonnie stuff her with all sorts of fox repellent (profound “racial fear” analogy here), and off she goes to the wondrous land of Zootopia.
And wondrous it is, an amalgamation of everything from the recent retro-futuristic look of “Tomorrowland” and the mind-island trippiness of “Inside Out,” to the works of Chuck Jones and a real, New York-ish vibe, angry neighbors and all, each animal an all-too-real archetype. Judy delves right into her work, but instead of getting a cool assignment, she gets delegated to parking duty by her mean Chief Bogo (Idris Elba). Undeterred by the dull task, she goes for a record amount of tickets – until she stumbles upon Nick (Jason Bateman), a hustler fox who runs a shady popsicle selling business (profound “drug war” analogy here). She attempts to stop him, but the mean Nick puts the bunny in her place, momentarily crushing her dreams (profound “big city crushing naive aspirations” analogy here).
One day, Judy stumbles upon an intriguing case and gets 48 hours to solve it, her file consisting of a single vague picture. It eventually brings her back together with Nick, and together they embark on a perilous investigation, which leads them to a clawed limo filled with polar bear fur, the tiniest and most evil crime boss in animated history, and, of course, a massive, “Chinatown”-like conspiracy. This is where the more adult themes kick in, as Judy unravels something that makes her a hero, but also ignites prejudice and social unrest throughout the city. “I came here to make the world a better place,” she says despondently. “But I think I broke it.”
Despite the lofty motifs and needlessly convoluted plot, “Zootopia”’s chief saving grace is its assault of visual puns and clever lines of dialogue. “Our killer instincts are still in our denim,” an overalls-wearing critter threatens, while his friend corrects, “I think you mean DNA.” In the classroom, the teacher starts off by saying, “We have to acknowledge the elephant in the room…”, and then wishes Francine, an elephant student, a happy birthday. A chase sequence through a tiny rodent city is exhilarating in its breakneck pace and imaginative twists on films like “Godzilla,” every buddy-cop chase ever made, and even the Buster Keaton oeuvre of nonstop, borderline-demented slapstick hilarity. Some other standout bits include a “Carrot for One” microwaveable dinner; “The Mystic Spring Oasis” nudist/hippie retreat; the sloth DMV sequence (renowned from the trailer); Mr. Big, a Scorsese-meets-Corleone pastiche; and a character who calls himself The Duke of Bootlegs.
While delivering commendable messages about tolerance and fitting in, and by all accounts succeeding on the comedy front, “Zootopia” never quite transcends its generic roots in a way, say, “The Lego Movie” did (by being so “meta” it redefined the term). Some of its pop culture references already give off a stale whiff, and the pedestrian Shakira opening – and closing – number surely doesn’t help the film achieve a timelessness of, for example, Pixar’s recent “The Good Dinosaur.” The solution to the Big Mystery is a bit cobbled-together and formulaic (may be the result of the story being originated by no less than eight writers).
The film frequently made me wish it were a collection of anecdotes from the city of Zootopia, the ambitious but somewhat-contrived story getting in the way of the real fun: watching those characters interact and mirror our behavior in eccentric fashion. “We may be evolved, but deep down we are still animals,” one of the characters poignantly says, reflecting on our tendency to resort to our primal, often violent and impulsive, instincts. With any luck, the inevitable “Zootopia 2”’s script will evolve past the antiquated narrative structure that Hollywood loves so much and deliver a full-blown extravaganza of carrot-crunchin’, inspired zaniness.
In theaters March 4th
