by Cain Noble-Davies
Worth: $16.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Ginnifer Goodwin, Jason Bateman, Ke Huy Quan, Fortune Feimster, Andy Samberg, David Strathairn, Idris Elba, Shakira
Intro:
… a great big fuzzy ball of fun.
While the efforts of Walt Disney Animation Studios in the 2010s has largely been remembered for its additions to the Princess canon with the Frozen duology as well as Moana, Zootopia has shown itself to be their big sleeper hit from that decade. Some of that could be because the film’s full-force and surprisingly brainy allegory for racial stereotyping and discrimination feels like it’s only gained relevance in the decade since its initial release; and of course, the online furry community.
This follow-up doesn’t go with the same style of commentary as its predecessor. The amount of script space once reserved for an impressive vocabulary of microaggressions is now being used for enough puns to make Mr. Peabody & Sherman blush, and the most out-of-nowhere cameos found outside of a Warner Bros. production. The sequel focuses more on societal effects than social ones, with a plot entrenched in the logistics of gentrification.
If you’re not looking for subtext, then you can also enjoy how endlessly adorable this film looks. The animation is excellent, and the further fleshing out of the titular cluster of biomes allows for gorgeous scenery and atmosphere, but it’s the characters who still make it all click. Ginnifer Goodwin and Jason Bateman are as tight as ever as Hopps & Wilde, everyone else around them are well-used (even if the appearance from ‘Bob Tiger’ pushes things a bit), and the character designs remain peak plush-toy material. The way the animators make new addition Gary De’Snake (Ke Huy Quan finally getting to be in a good movie this year) look just as aggressively huggable as Hopps, or even the returning Benjamin Clawhauser, adds to the bigger theming, showing the entire animal kingdom as something worthy of love, rather than fear.
Its entertainment value goes quite a bit beneath the surface too. It still plays into the ‘Lethal Weapon with bunny ears’ trappings of the original, but mingled in with the buddy cop tropes is a more adventurous, even globe-trotting approach to story and action set pieces, giving a major shot of adrenaline to the proceedings, especially when backed by Michael Giacchino’s exquisite soundtrack. Even the aforementioned punning, both in writing and in delivery by both actors and background details, goes from annoying to begrudgingly impressive after a while. It probably helps that the film fires one-off gags and quips at a mile a minute, so it benefits from the Waiting For A Bus principle: If one doesn’t get you, chances are there’ll be another dozen right behind it that probably will.
Zootopia 2 is a great big fuzzy ball of fun. It holds back on some of the original’s bluntness but still manages to deliver its own statements on systemic discrimination while keeping things engaging, heartwarming, and almost-embarrassingly funny. It’s called a good time, sweetheart.
