Director: Byron Howard, Rich Moore
Cast: Ginnifer Goodwin*, Jason Bateman, Idris Elba, Jenny Slate
Have I Seen It Before?: Never. But it has been on in the background during a series of facetime calls with my niece (or as she calls it, “FOXES!”), so I figured I needed to get with the times.
Did I like it?: I may be further showing my age by still being of a mind that films produced by Disney animation and not Pixar are somehow less than. It was certainly true back in the 90s and the 00s, but ever since John Lasseter** bridged the divide between the two animation houses, maybe Pixar films have been a little less special (not bad, just less special), and regular Disney pictures have increased in quality by quantum leaps. Wreck It Ralph (2012) immediately comes to mind.
The disparity in quality is just not there anymore, even as Lasseter’s era has come to an end. And so, Zootopia presents all of the visual inventiveness and humor we have come to expect from the mouse house. Far more interestingly, the world is an interesting speculative premise. What if the various animals of the world all evolved into a humanlike society? How would creatures that were once predators and prey come to interact with one another? Would they have nudity taboos? It’s a lot to take in for a kids movie. It leaves even larger questions that I’m not sure could fuel a sequel, but I keep thinking about a day after I watched the movie. Are there humans in this world? Did they not evolve? Do the species intermarry? It sure seems like Judy (Goodwin) and Nick (Bateman) seem to be awfully nice friends at the end of the film, but they can’t possibly have children, right?
Have I gotten to the point where I’m no longer in the right mindset for a bright colorful movie about talking animals? That’s probably the most pressing question of all.
*The role felt tailor made for someone like Amy Poehler, but Inside Out (2015) probably negated that possibility. It was only after looking up the stats on the film in anticipation of this review that I realized Judy was played by the ill-fated first Mrs. Cash. It’s a testament to the performance that it wasn’t immediately recognizable as someone, unlike the performances of either Bateman, Elba, or Slate.
** I know… It’s good for the culture that he is gone now, and it’s even better that he’s only kind of been able to land his golden parachute in the safe havens of Skydance Animation. But its impossible to deny that the man had an impact on the quality of animated movies over the last twenty-five years.