The Review Part VI: The Editors Should Probably Strike Back

"Star Wars: The Phantom Menace was the most disappointing thing since my son."
- Mr. Plinkett

"Zootopia is definitely better than one of the most despised movies of the last decade!"
-some guy

Since we only had five reviews of the first Zootopia movie, you think not much else could be said about it, but, actually, it's been almost a decade, and Disney movies collect bad faith readings like Flayrah collects Zootopia reviews, and I'd like to address a few of those.

First, starting small, there's the "what do the predators eat?" thing which for some reason you still see bandied about like that's a clever observation, despite the movie's climax hinging the main predator character carrying a snack with him. Turns out, they eat food. Moving on, people like to complain about "copaganda", but, honestly, even if you accept all cops are bad, they have jobs that put them in dramatic situations regularly, so people are going to tell stories about them. That, and I've recently seen complaints that the Godfather parody glorifies criminals, so tie goes to the movie. The big one is the assertion that the main metaphor equates specific races (usually African American or black) with predatory species, when the metaphor is about minorities in general, and the movie does not specifically code most characters racially (though you could possibly argue the lead characters are pretty white-coded). An ironically bad faith defense here is that, when Disney racially codes an animal character, it's very noticeable, though they've mostly cut that out (mostly). Which brings me to the final complaint against Zootopia, which is that it is a Disney movie, and to that, all I can say is, well, nobody's perfect.

Zootopia 2 is the sequel to Zootopia, which makes sense. (The movies are also known as Zootropolis in certain regions, which makes less sense.)

It is directed by returning director Byron Howard, as well as Jared Bush, who was only credited as a co-director on the first movie, and is replacing former full director Rich Moore. The team of Bush and Howard also directed Encanto together, which everyone seems to think is the best movie Disney has put out this decade, though I don't even think it was the best movie Disney put out that year, personally. Bush has also recently been promoted to "chief creative officer" at the studio, so this team is kind of the A-team at Disney at the moment.

Zootopia 2 follows the continuing adventures of rabbit Judy Hopps (voiced by Ginnifer Goodwin) and fox Nick Wilde (voiced by Jason Bateman), rookie cops for the ZPD and partners. When they accidentally cause a high speed chase that ends in disaster, they are threatened with being split up. Nick feels like they should just lay low, but Judy begins to suspect she's found evidence of a snake in Zootopia who is planning on stealing the journal of the inventor of the weather controlling technology that allows Zootopia to exist. In hindsight, they are both correct.

The duo soon meet Gary De'Snake (voiced by Ke Huy Quan), who soon convinces Judy that his intentions for the book are not evil. Unfortunately, Judy and Nick get blamed for helping the snake in his heist, and find themselves on the run. They find evidence suggesting that Zootopia's happy facade might be built on a lie. Which is actually also what happens in Disney's 100th Anniversary movie, Wish. Are you trying to tell us something, Disney? (This is also the third movie from Disney this decade where it is revealed a fantasy setting is built on the backs of reptiles, so if I had a nickel for every time that happened, it still wouldn't be a lot, but it would be one more nickel than is usual for this joke format.)

Other important characters include the conspiracy minded beaver, Nibbles Maplestick (voiced by Fortune Feimster), who becomes Nick and Judy's guide to the secret reptile underworld of Zootopia, and lynx Pawbert Lynxley (voiced by Andy Samberg), the black sheep scion of the family that claims to have invented the weather walls of Zootopia, though they seem pretty insistent that nobody actually check up on that. Nick and Judy are seperated at one point, and Nibbles and the duo of Gary and Pawbert become temporary partners to Nick and Judy, respectively.

The partnership of Nick and Judy is the thematic core of the movie, displacing the themes of prejudice from the first movie somewhat. They're still present, especially in the plight of the reptiles of Zootopia, but more emotional beats come from Nick and Judy's relationship this time. It's not a romanctic relationship, yet, but it's still early days. Judy sees Nick's apartment for the first time this movie, after all. A third movie might actually see some more concrete movement in the romance direction (if for no other reason that the filmmakers would have seen The Bad Guys 2 by now and realized, "oh, I guess we can just do that now").

The movie does bring back a lot of characters from the first movie, but it does actually at least justify why certain characters would reappear in certain scenes. Nick needs to get across town really fast, so he calls the speeding sloth. Nick and Judy are wanted fugitives, so of course the mafia don shrew knows how to help. The movie also adds plenty of new minor characters, some more amusing than others. In addition to reptiles, we also meet the aquatic mammals of Zootopia. There are quite a few vocal cameos, by the way. It seems like half of Hollywood voiced some kind of animal at some point for this movie.

The humor is much more referential this time around. Last movie had an extended Godfather parody, as already mentioned, but there are quite a few more bits like that. There was one very specific parody late in the third act that, on one hand, kind of brought everything to a standstill as it played out, but on the other, got the biggest out loud laughter from me in the entire movie. So, tie goes to the movie, again.

All in all, perhaps not as good as the first movie, but then again, when are sequels ever? Still, the best Disney's done since Raya and the Last Dragon.