Anthropomorphic animals occasionally amuse but Zootopia descends into a quagmire of political correctness

Rating: 5/10 (3 April 2017)

Having recently seen Pixar's entertaining computer animated comedy-drama Finding Dory, I was expecting something comparable from Disney with Zootopia. Unlike "Dory," which features a mixture of anthropomorphized fish characters playing off against humans, Zootopia features a world completely populated by non-human mammals (as well as some rodents thrown in to boot).
The world of Zootopia posits the cessation of hostilities between the 10% of "predators" versus 90% prey in the animal kingdom. However, that doesn't prevent the existence of prejudice among the creatures of Zootopia. The protagonist, Judy Hopps (Ginnifer Goodwin), a bunny from rural Bunnyburrow seeks to become the first bunny police officer. After ending up #1 in her class at the Police Academy, she becomes the first bunny officer in urban Zootropolis, a sprawling metropolis which features various ethnic neighborhoods such as Rodentia (a miniature city populated strictly by rodents), reflecting the ethnic diversity in human metropolitan centers.
When Chief Bogo (Idris Elba), a surly, by- the-book ram with a British accent, assigns Judy to humiliating duty as a meter maid, we realize that the discriminatory treatment she endures is a metaphor for misogyny and prejudice against women in the workplace.
The appearance of the con-artist fox, Nick Wilde (Jason Bateman)--as well as an earlier duplicitous fox character with a southern accent, Gideon Grey, back in Bunnyburrow--suggests that foxes appear to live up to their stereotyped reputations as manipulators and swindlers. Later on, Nick saves Judy and gives up a life of crime to become the first fox officer in Zootropolis. We learn that he initially went bad because of the prejudice he endured as a kid (the idea of an oppressed fox adopting the personality of his oppressor- -i.e. a criminal--doesn't seem like a far-fetched conceit at all).
While the Zootopia scenarists keep us guessing (and occasionally laughing a little bit) as to how the various denizens of Zootopia mimic human behavior, the bulk of the plot is more reminiscent of a film noir. Take away all the animals and replace them with real human characters and all that remains is a rather standard detective noir. In this case, Judy and Nick are the "detectives" who have 48 hours to find a Mr. Otterton--one of 10 predator mammals who have mysteriously disappeared from Zootropolis—or else Judy will be forced to hand in her resignation to boss Bogo.
Judy and Nick's travails occasionally land them in some occasionally amusing worlds including a DMV office populated by extremely lugubrious sloths (the joke however, goes on for a little too long). Then there's "Mr. Big," who appears to be a takeoff on Marlon Brando as the Godfather. The twist is that he's a rodent and sits on the tiniest of thrones.
Rather than humor, Zootopia is more interested in social commentary as Judy and Nick finally find the missing predators who have been imprisoned at an asylum by the city's mayor, a lion bent on protecting the public from the predators who have reverted to a "savage" state.
Nick splits with Judy after she suggests at a news conference that there might be a "biological cause" for the predators' extreme aggressive behavior. Somehow her suggestion is interpreted the wrong way—biology becomes heredity in the eyes of animals like Nick, who represent the 10% of predators subject to discrimination. Zootopia takes on an even more heavy-handed turn when we learn that the predators have been injected with darts containing a serum made from toxic flowers. This turns out to be the "biological" cause Judy alluded to earlier which accounts for the crazed behavior of the "predators." Behind all this is a "Prey Supremacist" movement—led by the newly minted mayor, Bellwhether, a sheep who was only recently the Assistant Mayor.
Could it be the 10%-- the "predators"--are a metaphor for minority populations, subject to racism and discrimination? And the prey supremacists is just another code word for "white supremacy"? All well and good but there's still one little problem here—those who engage in criminal activities (such as Nick the Fox), blame their immoral behavior on being victims of prejudice in childhood. Is that a valid excuse for immoral conduct? It seems that "personal responsibility" is a value that the film's scenarists are ignoring here.
Again the idea of the oppressed becoming the oppressors is a valid one, but Zootopia doesn't exactly deal with it in a completely honest way. Here the foxes are simply wily con men, with their chief (Nick), becoming completely reformed and willing to work within the system (Nick again is the first fox policeman). But what of those who choose to seek a life of violent crime? Where are these characters in the Zootopia universe? Only the "Prey Supremacists" are guilty of extreme, nefarious conduct. The Predators (foxes), however, are practically benign—with the idea that most will go straight like Nick and Judy's reformed childhood bully (the fox, Gideon Grey).
Zootopia unfortunately is an exercise in political correctness. While pointing out that prejudice is a bad thing (which of course is a very good idea)--the suggestion that the victims of such prejudice won't usually end up prejudiced themselves, is an example of wishful thinking. No one ethnic group should be held up as a paragon of moral superiority simply because they were victims of discrimination in the past.