by Ali » Mar 05, '16, 8:12 pm
Zootopia
As Cat Stevens once said, "Oh, baby, baby, it's a Wild World."
Come to think of it, why wasn't "Wild World" used in this movie? Sung by a character called Cat Stevens? It would've been perfect!
But I digress. This is the relatively civilized world of Zootopia, where animals of all kinds come together and live in peace and harmony! Or so it seems on the surface. What lies beneath is tale of predator and prey, politics and prejudice, pride and power, all wrapped up in a police procedural! What do all these P-words add up to? Simply put, one of the smartest and most clever animated films in recent memory.
Disney brings us the story of Judy Hopps, a bright-eyed and bushy tailed little bunny, who dreams of breaking out of her family's tradition of being carrot farmers to become a police officer in the big city of Zootopia. I mean, it's not like the family needs her, she's got over 200 siblings that could easily take over the farm, so okay. But still, everyone wants to keep little Judy down. There's never been a rabbit police officer, and she's too "Cute" to be taken seriously. And her being called "cute" leads to one of the best jokes in the movie, but I'll get to that.
She's stuck on parking duty, but she wants more, so she takes up a Missing Persons (Animals?) case. With the help of a sly fox, Nick Wilde, who knows the streets and is roped in by the threat of Judy arresting him for tax evasion, she uncovers a scandal and a mystery that leads all the way to the top of the Food Chain, so to speak.
Now, I'm not going to sugarcoat anything... this movie's basically about the dangers of bigotry and prejudice, particularly racism and sexism. Judy Hopps can't be taken seriously as a cop because she's a "cute little bunny". Nick Wilde's never gonna amount to anything, because foxes are too untrustworthy, shifty, all of that. Predators should be feared because you never know when their "natural instincts" are going to kick in and become a threat to the innocent prey. Does this remind you of anything?
Now, it is dealing with these, heavy, HEAVY issues, and yet, it never feels preachy. It never beats you over the head with this message. It's there, it's not something you can ignore, but it's not the entire purpose of the film. The writing is so clever, the characters have such depth and personality, that it works as a straight-up buddy cop movie. It reminds me of something like 48 Hrs. or Shanghai Noon, where you pair the cop with the outlaw and they have to solve this crime or uncover this mystery.
I'm not going to talk about the character designs or the animation because, well, it's Disney. Needless to say, the film looks gorgeous. Also, the voice cast is, again, ON POINT. Ginnifer Goodwin and Jason Bateman are your leads, and they are perfect for these roles. You've got a supporting cast that includes Idris Elba, Jenny Slate, J.K. Simmons, among others, and they are fantastic. And they're not just phoning it in, you can tell they're acting and really getting into these roles.
Now, I do have a couple of problems, but they are minor. For one, there's that whole plot point of how there's a big misunderstanding, and I hate that trope. And while I think the message is good and not done in a heavy-handed way, it just doesn't hit me on nearly the same levels as Inside Out did, but I consider Inside Out to be such a perfect film that it's really not fair to compare the two. I think this is a stronger film than Big Hero 6 or even Frozen, and I loved Frozen.
My other problem with the film, and this is probably the biggest nitpick of all time, but I gotta say it. You have so much creativity in this film, in the designs of the world, and the writing is really clever... but some of these character names are just lazy. I mean, you've got some clever names: Hopps, Bellwether, Clawhauser... but it feels like somewhere, they gave up. Otterton, Lionheart, Weaselton (though I can let this one slide due to a long, cross-movie gag), there could be a lot more thought put into those.
But the most egregious example is Shakira's character. She's good in the movie, she plays a pop star gazelle with the big song, but the character's name is... Gazelle.
Really, Disney?! All of this thought put into this movie, and you call the gazelle character Gazelle?! What are all the other gazelles called, then? I saw 'em, they exist! Come on!
But overall, I think this is another supreme hit for Disney. This is gonna go down as one of those classics of animation, I think it'll only get better with time, it's a lot of fun, go see this movie.
Final Rating - Great. I'm gonna say a solid 8.5/10. Not perfect, not as strong as Inside Out, but what is? You're doing yourself a disservice if you DON'T see this movie.
Credit to SKS for the new Waluigi World Order!
My movie rating scale:
- AMAZINGLY AWESOME!!!
- Great
- Good
- Enjoyable Crap
- Crap
- I WILL KILL EVERYONE INVOLVED WITH THIS PRODUCTION
Last movie seen -
Inside Out; Rating - Amazingly Awesome