Movie Review: Zootopia

Recently, the Disney Animation Studio has been putting out a lot of deep movies. It’s almost like they’re headset on breaking down the fairytale stories and ideologies they helped to put up in the first place. First, we had Big Hero 6, and then Frozen, and now we have Zootopia.

What’s Zootopia About?

Our movie is set in a future where mammals have evolved to a point where they all walk on two legs, and predators and prey all live together in harmony in the metropolis of Zootopia. In Zootopia, it’s believed that every mammal can be whatever they want to be. At least, this is what Optimist Officer Judy Hopps (voice of Ginnifer Goodwin) believes when she finally becomes the first ever rabbit on the Zootopia Police Force. She has a rude awakening when she isn’t welcomed on the force with open arms, and witnesses specieism against a fox, Nick Wilde (voice of Jason Bateman), who eventally turns out to be a scam artist.

As the story goes on, Judy has to team up with Nick to solve a missing otter case. They eventually uncover a much deeper, far more sinister hidden agenda in the course of their investigation.

Highlights of the movie

The first thing I noticed about Zootopia was that there were a lot more “prey” than “predators”. One would assume that predators would be the majority in a new world, but that’s not quite the case. Yes, the mayor of Zootopia is a Lion, but there is also a sheep who is the assitant mayor. I guess this is symbolic for balance or something of the sort.

Another great thing about the movie was the puns and the references to real world pop culture. We even see a Pig Hero 6 DVD sometime during screenplay, and there is a very prominent reference to The Godfather. The animals even have a famous pop star among them; a Gazelle named ‘Gazelle’ (voiced by Shakira).This movie shows what happens when people of different cultures somehow find themselves living together in the same place. There will always be problems, even when people try to sweep the differences under the rug.

I especially loved the action sequences in  Zootopia. It actually all felt very real. The emotional cues were on point as well, and no one could possibly have missed the lessons and values being transmitted as we followed Judy and Nick on their hunt for answers. Our key characters all get tto the point where they question what they thought to have known about themselves, and then find resolution.

In summary

Zootopia is yet another different but great movie from Disney, slowly but surely steering us away from the mentality that cartoons are just for kids. Sure, they left their usual, feel-good elements to it – a happy ending for everyone but the bad guy – but you can still feel a little bit of the seriousness and doses of reality. The political issues buried in this movie alone is enough proof that we have much to learn from animations. If you haven’t seen it because you think it’s “just another cartoon”, I suggest you do.