directed by Byron Howard, Rich Moore and Jared Bush
written by Jared Bush, Phil Johnston, Byron Howard, Rich Moore and Jennifer Lee
Walt Disney Animation's new anthropomorphic film Zootopia, starts out well enough. It lays down its premise quickly and efficiently: animals used to exist in a predator and prey relationship, but they have evolved past that and live in harmony, as acted out by the young Judy Hopps (Della Saba) and her friends in a school play. Not long thereafter, though, Judy, who dreams of becoming a police officer someday, faces down a school bully who happens to be a fox, who overpowers her, but only firms up Judy's resolve to become a police officer someday.
Fifteen years later, Judy (Ginnifer Goodwin) is even more determined to become a police officer. She faces prejudice and contempt on account of her diminutive stature relative to the other recruits, and even after she graduates top of her class at the academy, she is treated badly by her superior Chief Bogo (Idris Elba) an ill-tempered cape buffalo, who puts her on traffic duty initially. When Judy busts a small-time criminal (Alan Tudyk), she manages to earn Bogo's ire for leaving her post, but also gets put on a missing mammal case when, while Bogo is chewing her out, the wife of a missing otter, one of several missing predators who have the Zootopia police on an extensive "animal" hunt, bursts into Bogo's office pleading desperately for help, upon which Hopps volunteers. Hopps is determined to solve the case, but first she must team up with someone she trusts the least: a con artist named Nick Wilde (Jason Bateman) who happens to be a fox. While their partnership is a tumultuous one at first, working together, they soon discover something shocking that could affect the entire Zootopia.
What starts out as a fairly standard cartoon about following one's dreams metamorphoses pretty quickly into a startling story about prejudice going one way, and then another. The good thing about the writing is that it pretty much lays the basis for its third-act revelations, unlike the twist in Frozen that felt a tad forced. It's actually some pretty clever bait-and-switch writing and I appreciate the writers for turning some storytelling tropes on their heads. I can't really say much more without spoiling crucial plot twists, but suffice it to say this film's script was very well-realized and has a lot of really important things to say about fear-mongering and minorities.
The film, of course, is a technical marvel, as most of them have been since Disney abandoned hand-drawn animation for good with Tangled. I had thought that the fantastic Japanese-American-inspired cityscape of Big Hero 6 would be a tough act to top, and I imagine it was, but Disney went and did it anyway. Rendering animals could not have been an easy feat. One look at Hopps along reveals how astonishingly detailed her fur was, and one realizes that having the animals wear clothes was actually a bit of a "cheat" as it saved the animators considerable effort in having to render all of their fur. Still, considering the detail lavished on the entire production I'd hardly take a little labor saving against them. Also, it made for a pretty good gag when Judy and Nick walk into a community of "naturalists" or animals that don't wear clothes.
I really love it when I walk out of a film pleasantly surprised. I had already expected to enjoy this film with my children, but I had not at all expected it to tackle such a topical theme, much less this skillfully. This is the kind of movie I would have expected from Disney's more highbrow cousin Pixar. I can think of no higher praise.
10/10
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