24 April 2016

[Review] Zootopia





Director: Byron Howard, Rich Moore, Jared Bush
Cast: Shakira, Ginnifer Goodwin, Jason Bateman, Idris Elba, J.K. Simmons, Jenny Slate, Alan Tudyk, Tommy Chong, Octavia Spencer, John DiManggio, Jesse Corti.
Genre: Action/Adventure
Running Time: 108 minutes (1 hours 48 minutes)
Release Dates: 30th March 2016


Zootopia is a strikingly blunt and unrelentingly committed race relations parable hidden inside a big-hearted comedy set in a world of anthropomorphized animals. Walt Disney could have merely made a relatively lighthearted comedy involving animal stereotypes and pop culture references and watched the money roll in, but they have something more interesting and more important up their sleeves.

The picture is co-directed by Byron Howard, Rich Moore, and Jared Bush, and it is co-written by (deep breath) Byron Howard, Rich Moore, Jared Bush, Josie Trinidad, Jim Reardon, Phil Johnston, and Jennifer Lee. Despite oh-so-many cooks in the kitchen, it is a singular picture that serves as a surprisingly potent companion piece to Who Framed Roger Rabbit?

Like that Robert Zemeckis masterpiece, Zootopia is something of an old-school detective story. What begins as a “plucky young bunny ventures into the big city to prove her worth as a cop” story quickly becomes something a bit more complicated and a bit less cut-and-dry. What is most surprising about Zootopia, beyond its beauty (the film will have you scanning the frame looking for jokes and visual wonders) and hearty laughs, is its commitment to the genre and its piercing topicality and text.

Once its primary case gets cooking, it really does become a (comparatively) gritty film noir detective story; one that brings the subtexts of the era straight to the foreground. A reluctant partnership between Ginnifer Goodwin’s optimistic rookie cop bunny and Jason Bateman’s deeply cynical con-artist fox sends the film head-long into Shane Black territory with surprisingly few concessions for that whole “animated film for children” thing. There’s even some gratuitous nudity!

And what turns into a simple missing persons case becomes a genuinely engrossing and disturbing mystery. There has been a lot of talk over the last few years about how Marvel has used specific genres to ground their superhero movies in worlds and conventions outside of the so-called stereotypical superhero movie, and that absolutely applies here. Zootopia has a lot to say and says it within the realm of an uncommonly engrossing crime story.

From a plot beat that is cribbed (unintentionally?) from Training Day to sequences that would feel at home in mid-90′s X-Files episodes, this is a full-on hard-boiled detective movie. But not just content to be an approximation of genre, Zootopia uses its fantastical world to take the bubbling racial subtexts of the 1940′s noir and make it righteously angry text. You’re going to read a lot of think pieces about how the film uses tension between animals that were once “prey” and domesticated predators as a parable for racial tensions and the way that fear can make seemingly upstanding and optimistic people do, say, or think hurtful things. And, to quote that other Disney movie, it’s true, all of it, it’s all true.

And yeah, this is exactly the movie we need right now, whether it “makes a difference” or not. Yes, the film eventually becomes a commentary on how those in power, or those who want power, use fear of the “other” to achieve their goals at the expense of the innocent. The film is brutally frank about how people who assume themselves to be progressive can be driven to mania by fear-based hatemongering, and how you don’t have to wear a white hood to be racist or engage in what is implicitly racist behavior.

If Who Framed Roger Rabbit? was In the Heat of the Night, then Zootopia is Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner. This is a tale about allegedly open-minded animals who are confronted by their own prejudices and forced to put their money where their mouth is even in a time of fear and panic. This is potent stuff, delivered in a kid-friendly format that will preach to far more than the would-be converted.

If I have made the film feel like a social studies lecture, fear not, it is still a bouncy and fiercely alive comic adventure. There are jokes and sight gags galore, and the overall tone is a mix of froth and hard-edged procedural. You’ve seen the DMV joke in the trailers, but the version that plays out in the movie is even funnier. And there are any number of clever jokes and inside gags that are more than just “Hey, it’s an animal-based pun because this world has no humans in it!” Free tip: Pay close attention to the table filled with pirates DVDs.

Goodwin and Bateman make a splendid team, with Bateman doing what he does best and bringing empathetic humanity to someone who could have just been played as a sarcastic jerk. The rest of the cast, including Jenny Slate as a sympathetic Deputy Mayor, Idris Elba as a domineering commanding officer, and Nate Torrence as a friendly dispatcher, are all quite wonderful, and the much-advertised Shakira song “Try Everything” (which is used as a transitional tune in the first act) is a real ear worm.

If I’m dancing around the edges, it’s because I have no desire to give away the best jokes or the most surprising plot turns. The film works not just as adult-friendly kids entertainment, but as a truly engrossing story and a powerful piece of relevant social commentary. And it’s surprisingly subtle in how it balances its criticisms of the patriarchy with the more overt racial/ethnic issues at play. There’s so much to chew on and so much entertainment value in this one.

Zootopia sets the bar rather high for animated releases even in a year with nearly twenty of them dropping between January and December. That it’s this good while being merely one of three Walt Disney animated features (along with Pixar’s Finding Dory and Disney’s Moana) puts everyone on notice. It really is the whole package. It’s funny, it’s clever, it’s exciting and suspenseful, and it operates as one of the more potent “social issues” pictures that we’ve seen from a major studio (even during the Oscar season) in quite some time.

I’m not inclined to get into a “better than Frozen?” or “better than (insert Pixar movie HERE)?” conversation, because Zootopia stands proud as its own thing and its triumphs are exclusive to itself. But the fact that this even occurred to me should let you know how terrific it turned out to be. How’s this for a pull quote? I liked Zootopia almost as much as Meet the Robinsons! Longtime readers will understand.

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