Fast, funny, beautiful and thought-provoking

Rating: 10/10 (22 August 2016)

When I first heard of this movie, it looked like it would just be another animal anthropomorphic buddy comedy animated movie, done in a similar fashion to Shrek, Toy Story, Ice Age or Madagascar. I was still looking forward to it after the successes of Wreck-It-Ralph, Frozen and Big Hero 6, but I did think Disney Animation Studios movie started to decline in quality, not by much mind you. So when I did see it, I was completely unprepared for the incredibly profound metaphors this movie sets out to tell and the parallels this movie makes with our own society, while still being funny, entertaining and fast paced for children.
Everyone who watches this movie will touch upon the realization that this movie tackles racism, stereotypes and media fear tactics while using species (specifically predators and preys) to outline a form of class-ism. While Zootopia does not say anything that has not already been said before, it does present them in a different way. Our protagonist, Judy Hopps is a bunny, a prey, who is open minded to anyone becoming anything and a sidekick Nick Wilde is a fox, a predator, who believes that people can only be who they are, they both learn of each others limitations, difficulties growing up from the stereotypes associated to their respective species and both animals grow as individuals and as friends. These characters are very well established, as well as their enemies. The villains in the movie are brilliant because, while they were racist (or speciest), they had real motivation and you can understand why they would believe certain things would be true, when they are not. While some of the minor villains could be fleshed out more, the main villains were not racist for the sake of being racist.
On a technical aspect, this movie is very well voice acted, in particular for Idris Elba, Ginnifer Goodwin, Jenny Slate and Jason Bateman. The animation is vivid and has a great blend being cartooned for style and realistic for clarity. The movie does a great job of building this world, especially when there are tiny mouses and giant giraffes occupying the same vicinity, so they took in consideration road and cars sizes as well as having certain districts for bigger and/or smaller animals. The score by Michael Giacchino is captivates you in whichever setting it displays on screen. Also if that opening scene featuring Shakira's song "Try Everything" does not pull you into the wonder of Zootopia and all of its districts, then I don't know what will.
As for flaws, there are a few. There are older movie references that adults will laugh at but kids will not. So to anyone unfamiliar to those movies will not understand the humour, and sometimes will even come across as plot conveniences. Between the second and third act of the movie, our two leads will get into a skirmish which to me felt artificial and forced, but it actually helped the investigation come to an end, I understand why they needed to argue, I just don't think it was handed as well as it could. Also some animals seemed smaller than they were so supposed to be, like the mice, sheep and the elephants, and some seemed larger, like the fox and the buffalo. I'm basing this off Judy's size, because in the movie Chief Cape Buffalo Bogo is the same size as an Elephant, while Nick Wilde, a fox is twice as big as Judy, a rabbit.
Those complaints really were not enough for be to dock it a mark, I was nit-picking a little too much, but I really love this movie. I think it is the best movie Disney made since at least this decade. I'm not counting Pixar movies though. I do believe this is better than movies like Wreck-It-Ralph, Frozen, Big Hero 6 etc. Judy Hopps is a great female role model for kids, children looking back at the movie when they are older will definitely catch on the metaphors they missed, and adults will probably love it more than kids, because of how relevant in our society it is. It might be this year's Inside Out and I hope it get's a Best Picture Nomination.
10/10