98% on Rotten Tomatoes
Chloe's thoughts: It's alright
Watch it if you: Like animations; Want an easy, fun and enjoyable movie that still has some great deeper meaning and lessons; Need to watch a movie with a child but still want to enjoy the movie yourself
I've finally gotten around to watching this movie! Back in the beginning of the year, I remember there was a huge Zootopia craze with everyone saying how amazing and funny the trailer looked, but I really did not see what the hype was about. To me, the trailers didn't look that great, as it made the film look like a typical buddy cop story. Surprisingly, though, it was quite enjoyable. I mean, I still don't see it as amazingly as everyone else seems to see it, but it definitely wasn't as stupid as I thought it would be.
In fact, the plot was quite interesting and unique, and I certainly did not realise I was getting into something as deep and layered as this. The film places us somewhere in the distant future where animals have evolved so that there is no distinction between predator and prey. Animals can live in peace now, sharing foods, homes, and workplaces. Our main character, Judy Hopps, aspires to be the first ever bunny cop in the city where dreams come true: Zootopia.
Before watching this film, I heard a lot of people showering this film with praises on how well it handles themes such as discrimination and racism. In fact, it was consistently compared to how well Inside Out (2015) handled depression and mental illness. While it is fantastic that a children's film was able to address this, I did feel like the movie was a little bit too preachy about it. The themes of stereotyping and discriminating felt so in-your-face, it was a bit annoying.
It was also annoying that the film was even a little hypocritical in this regard. As Screen Junkies pointed out, ever single character is stereotypically what you would expect of the animal. It would be like if a film portrayed a hot blonde as stupid, a Jew as stingy, a young person as irresponsible, a woman as a bad driver, and then told you to not assume that these stereotypes would apply to these characters. I mean, even their most aggressive marketing campaign revolved around a scene involving sloths being slow. And while it was a funny scene that was of course deliberately dragged out for way too long, it was a bit weird to have a major gag come from laughing at a character's biological disadvantage in a movie trying to tell us to remove preconceived notions of people having inherent biological disadvantages!!! They try to tell us not to judge a book by its cover, or an animal by it's fur, but whenever we meet a new character, they make that character's personality align with the stereotypes associated with that particular animal. I know that they break this in the end, to complete their "don't stereotype" theme, but it's a bit forced, and these breakings of stereotypes doesn't seem to come naturally.
Of course, I'm probably doing what I do best and just overthinking this way too much. Don't get me wrong, it was great to have a seemingly innocent children's film be really layered with these themes, but I just didn't think it was all that amazing.
However, the film was actually pretty funny, the animation was great, and they had some really clever ways of depicting what it would be like if animals were civilised (and by clever, I mean very vigorously punny). Jason Bateman was a great casting choice, since his ever-chill voice was a perfect fit for the super chill and sly fox. Every time he speaks, I always imagine his head being tilted to the side, while he's got one hand in his jean pocket and one shoulder sort of raised in a perpetual state of half-shrugging. He is one casual man, and this is completely contrasted by the ever-energetic bunny Judy, as well as the stressed-out and very commanding buffalo Chief Bogo, voiced by Idris Elba. While his accent wasn't the best or the most soothing, it was still really pleasant to hear him in this. The other voice characters were great too, with Jenny Slate, Nate Torrence, and even J. K. Simmons being great secondary characters.
So this is a (semi) short review for this film, but overall I think it was decent. It wasn't great, and I don't think it deserved all the hype and praise that it received, but it was still pretty enjoyable. It was funny, unique and interesting, albeit a bit cliché and predictable, and it had some great messages to send to children about racism, discrimination, and notions of genetic superiority/inferiority.
A few side notes:
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