Review
Zootopia (Animation, Adventure, Comedy) (2016)
Directors: Byron Howard, Rich Moore
Writers: Byron Howard (story by), Rich Moore (story by)
Stars: Ginnifer Goodwin, Jason Bateman, Idris Elba, Nate Torrence
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Zootopia. A city filled with anthropomorphic animals that have all come together to live in peace alongside each other. A city divided by several districts to accommodate every animal’s needs with for example an Arctic district, a Desert district, A Jungle/Rainforest District. But even in the most peaceful cities, you need a police force to make sure everyone stays in line.
Judy Hopps is one of those police officers, just starting after moving out of the neighbouring Bunnyburrow to chase her dreams. But with her first day on the job, she’s already causing plenty of shake-ups in the vast city of Zootopia while meeting plenty of different and interesting animals.
Zootopia is an adorable film which is also the first thing that draws you in, so many fuzzy animals in a near-human world yet instead of humans; it’s just these cute anthropomorphic animals. There are rabbits, foxes, wolves, bears many creatures all of different sizes. That makes world-building quite tricky, yet Zootopia does a fantastic job at it, starting with Bunnyburrow that has a tiny station cinematically shown to appear pretty big because of the animals surrounding it which are mostly rabbits and small foxes. Still, as soon as Zootopia becomes the main backdrop, the main character Judy seems to be a lot smaller almost the size she would be in the real world. From that point, onward the viewer gets introduces to many objects and buildings that fit in very well and integrate animals small and big, all in their own custom-made environments. Apart from great world-building Zootopia is actually very funny for children and adults alike, there are many references and jokes specifically aimed to adults while still having a lot of simpler jokes that children (and adults) will surely have a good laugh at and alongside even some nice references to kids movies.
Alongside the jokes and cute aesthetics, Zootopia manages to bring some real issues to light as well, mainly towards our judgement of others we feel different to, and it tries to tell us to be tolerant to others even if we might be afraid of them due to racial stereotypes. To me, it’s great to see these things worked into kids movies to playfully introduce such subjects to them.
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Verdict
An experience that is chock full of good stuff. From a menagerie of different animals, all interacting in various ways to many hilarious jokes and references. Don’t lock these animals in a zoo they’re too funny and independent for that.
9,0
