Official Synopsis
When new rabbit police officer Judy Hopps (voice of Ginnifer Goodwin) arrives in town she discovers that being the first bunny on a police force of tough, hulking animals isn’t so easy. Determined to prove herself, she jumps at the opportunity to crack an unsolved, challenging case even if it means working with a fast-talking, scam-artist fox, Nick Wilde (voice of Jason Bateman), to solve the mystery. But the case leads these two unlikely partners to an uneasy conclusion that Zootopia’s “evolved” society is being pulled apart by unseen forces determined to use fear to take control of the city by turning predators and prey against each other.
Zootopia is an interesting Disney film that walks the line of friendly kid movie and intriguing mystery. I honestly expected the film to be pretty cut and dry when it came to plot delivery and payoff. I thought maybe Disney would rely on humor to see a somewhat shallow story through, but it completely surprised me (pleasantly). Directors Byron Howard, Rich Moore, Jared Bush and writer Phil Johnston deliver a deeper mystery than should be allowed on a Disney film, as it sets a new bar for storytelling in animation.
Enough jibber-jabber, let’s get right to it.
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The first act spends a good majority of its time building up our main bunny, Judy Hopps (Ginnifer Goodwin) and her quest to become the fist rabbit police officer in Zootopia. The first act shows her going through life lessons, sometimes getting knocked down, but always maintaining her direction/dream to become what she wants to be, which is pretty much the Zootopia motto anyway. The first act ends with her struggling as a police officer, being constantly overlooked for ‘real’ police work by her boss, Chief Bogo (Idris Elba), and finally going off on her own to help solve a single mystery of a missing otter, much to the chagrin of Bogo.
The first act is filled to the brim with setup and character development. We get a David and Goliath feel from Goodwin’s Hopps (she’s David, by the way), which makes her efforts and payoff as a police officer in the first act kind of an achievement for both Hopps and the audience. The way the directors and writers set up her character and properly give her time to cultivate into a character the audience cares about helps to sell her seeming plight to succeed as a P.O. in Zootopia. By the end of act one, you’re really going to be rooting for her to solve the mystery of the missing otter, so that she can prove Bogo wrong.
As act two begins, we have the slick/con-artist fox, Nick Wilde (Jason Bateman) enter the story and is introduced as a smart, resourceful goto individual. Hopps blackmails Nick into helping her track down the missing otter, which leads both of them into trouble with a shrewd shrew straight out of the Godfather. They are also lead into a much deeper, darker mystery where animals are ravaging each other when that hasn’t been the case in Zootopia for years and years. The mystery gets both characters into sticky situations in act two and almost killed in some scenes.
Act two, which should be a simple conflict, takes the happy-go-lucky feel of a typical Disney film, turns it on its head, shakes it and can’t promise that it’s all going to turn out okay. Act two takes the entire story and makes it far deeper and meaningful than most animated features not labeled with DC on them. The humor in act two helps to balance out some of the scary parts, things like a ravaging otter or panther, as well as also sending the story into an unpredictable storytelling state, where the audience truly can’t figure out who the antagonist is and what their motivation might be. That’s not a bad thing at all, it’s just a highly unusual way to go for a Disney film. A way to go that is most (MOST) welcomed.
As act three begins, Hopps and Nick find themselves in the company of the antagonist, where the big reveal hadn’t shown its hand at all during the length of the film. Having said that, it works. It makes sense that the antagonist did what they did and their motivation was proper within the context of the story built for it. In short, act three brings it all together and ends the film properly, wonderfully and beautifully.
Overall, Zootopia is a film made for everyone. Kids will love it, parents will find far more beef to this burrito than expected and it just begs for another go around with the two lead characters. In addition, I found it refreshing and fascinating how more upfront the movie was with prejudices and moral dilemmas than typical animated films trying to breach said topics. It’s a great film on many levels and no one should miss it.
On the presentation side of the equation, huge kudos to the Disney animators for bringing the incredibly cute and furry Zootopia world to life. They did a great job on visuals, as the personalities and animal traits come shining through nearly perfectly animated characters. Pixar better watch out, as the Disney animators are becoming strong competition in the digital animation feature film department.
As for the special features, here’s what you have to look forward to on the Zootopia Blu-ray set:
– Zoology: The Roundtables
– The Origin of An Animal Tale
– Research: A True-Life Adventure
– ZPD Forensic Files
– Deleted Characters
– Deleted Scenes
– Scoretopia
– Music Video “Try Everything” by Shakira
While maybe not great in number the features actually have some beef to them. The Zoology and The Origin of An Animal Tale are pretty entertaining, as are the ZPD Forensic Files. The rest is a mixture of good adult/kid content that should add some value to the overall package. In short, excellent compliments to an excellent film.
