Smart, funny and beautifully animated

Rating: 8/10 (6 March 2016)

Disney's latest animated feature is smart, funny and beautifully animated. It might look like your standard talking animal fare, but it has a lot going on, with some smart metaphors and a complex story. Zootopia is an enormous city full of anthropomorphic mammals who have evolved to live together in a cooperative society that consists of both predators and prey of every sort - they have long since given up on being enemies. Ginnifer Goodwin plays Judy Hopps, the first rabbit to make it onto the Zootopia police force - though all mammals have supposed equality, prejudices kind of rule their society, and such a small creature has never been able to be in such a position before. Judy is initially given simple duties, but she insists on being more and eventually finds her way into a major investigation of disappearing citizens. She teams up with a con artist fox (Jason Bateman), and the two search for clues. The film introduces a lot to think about; it definitely could get young ones considering things like prejudice, stereotypes and racism, and without ever seeming obvious or preachy. The characters are great and the animation wonderful. I did think the story resolves itself way too easily, like, at a certain point, the filmmakers either hit a wall and decided they had to take a shortcut to the end, or perhaps they were thinking a young audience would be getting bored so they just hand the protagonists the answer to hurry things along. The film still may be above younger audience members' heads - the smallest kids in my theater seemed to grow tired of it quickly. All in all, it's a good time and a fine addition to the Disney canon.