Safe, slightly heartwarming, and pretty funny. Closer to Shrek and Madagascar than it is to any Disney classics.

Rating: Null/10 (3 March 2016)

This movie is really disappointing to me. I've seen some of Disney's best, and this isn't it -- but it easily could have been. When I saw Zootopia's teaser trailer months ago before "Inside Out", it looked like a solid premise: "animals live like people but retain some of their wild traits". It doesn't take an amazing premise to make an amazing movie. "Frozen" and "The Lion King" are awesome movies not because of the setup for their story, but because of how the story is told. They feel like care was put into their world.
Zootopia takes a lazier, more adult approach to creativity. You can see this same problem in "The Lego Movie", most kids' movies, and many episodes of "Family Guy". The laziest humor you can have is referential humor, and Zootopia's references cheapen the clever jokes it also has. Given this animal world, there's room for a lot of funny jokes and puns based on traits audiences are familiar with. One that Disney gets a lot of mileage out of is how many offspring rabbits tend to create (the main character has around 180 siblings). And those jokes are really funny because they only make sense in the world of Zootopia.
It's a lot lazier to make an iPhone, make it look like an iPhone, and change the Apple logo to a carrot logo. On another phone, we see a photos app whose interface and logo look a lot like Google Photos. In "Toy Story 3", there's a ripoff of a Macbook, and it *enhances* the story - these are real toys in the real human world, interacting with a real brand of computers. What is so exciting about Zootopia is it gives its writers and animators a chance to make its own unique world. Any relationship with the human world should serve a logical purpose within the animal world as well. Otherwise, it's like the animal world of Zootopia doesn't even exist. (This is done well, for example, when a train car has three sets of doors, for big, medium, and small animal). "Wreck-It Ralph" puts more care into its world than Zootopia does.
There's an extended reference to "The Godfather" which has lots of references and not much original humor. It's disappointing to have boring references like this alongside creative, funny jokes that build off of Zootopia's world. I laughed a lot at the lame costumes at a school play in the film.
Perhaps the most tasteless joke in the entire movie is that lemmings follow each other. They don't, and they never have. This myth was created BY Disney in the 1950s. Not only is it weird to have fake animal behaviors in a movie seemingly obsessed with cataloging real ones, it's insulting to be reminded of Disney's past animal abuse. There are animals that move in herds, and a joke that bison or sheep all scrambled in a herd to buy a "pawpsicle" is not much of a stretch from the existing joke.
Like its comedy, the rest of Zootopia is uneven. Jason Bateman puts in a great performance as a mischievous fox. He channels the conniving behavior his "Arrested Development" character had in that show's final season. The animation is rarely jawdropping. Dreamworks or Sony could have animated this movie, and very little would be different. Even the fur of the animals doesn't look that fluffy or fun, except in rare scenes. I was more blown away by "Frozen", and that was over two years ago. "Frozen" had incredible bright lighting, shimmering water reflections, and sparkly snow and ice. In Zootopia, there's a good montage of all the climates its city has to offer. Also, there is an "Avatar"-style serene misty floaty jungle type of place, but other than that, it's a pretty normal city with a fairly normal visual style.
The story kept me interested in the movie but is not one I want to go back to. A rabbit cop is tasked with solving the disappearance of an otter. There's some interesting, yet obvious subtext that is expressed reasonably well. It's relevant in the era of Donald Trump, but says little that hasn't been said in countless other movies. When movies like "Frozen" or "The Little Mermaid" have an average story, they can fall back on their incredible visuals and thrilling music. Zootopia has no traditional musical numbers, and the vocal song that plays through the rabbit's phone early in the film isn't nearly as catchy as "Under the Sea", nor is it as rich with meaning as "Let It Go". I like its message, saying that trying new things and making mistakes is an important part of life, but didn't find it as engaging as some pop hits like "Raise Your Glass". The instrumental soundtrack (from the composer for "Inside Out" and "The Incredibles") was more up my alley. I specifically noticed how cool "Ticket to Write" was - it has a laid-back, tropical vibe.
Good animal stories can be told. Disney made The Lion King. Other companies made "Cats Don't Dance", "Fantastic Mr. Fox", and "Finding Nemo". The TV show "Polar Bear's Cafe" has inventive animal comedy. What saddens me with Zootopia is that you get bits of cynicism, that the filmmakers are so above it all. "We didn't make our own Google logo because we didn't have to". "We copied human sensibilities for pop stars because that's what people recognize". The implication is that kids are too stupid to know the difference between attention to detail and sloppiness, and the cynicism and references to real life are there to keep parents from wanting to leave the theater. As if a well-made movie with an easy-to-follow story is something that no adult would want to watch.