Zootopia Review

What I liked: I loved the sloths. This scene from the trailer is the best stand alone part of the movie, watching the smile slowly creep over the sloth's face is phenomenal and I enjoy it every time. I liked the Godfather. I liked the different environments particularly the tiny rodent land. Especially the hamster tubes. I liked the crazy neighbors. I loved the use of the boot. I liked the radio that only played unhelpful music. I liked that the main character used earbuds in her giant bunny ears. I liked the jokes and plot twists. I saw them all coming (and annoyed the people I was watching with by announcing the what would be happening in the next scene) but as a mark of great execution they were still funny and/or satisfying, which is impressive. I liked that the main characters uses a carrot phone instead of an apple phone. I liked the dancing app and I thought the backup dancers at the end were funny. I was highly entertained by the hippie commune. We have thought along these lines at least once since Mickey made is debut in the 1920s. There were were lots of pop culture references my favorites being to breaking bad and to Emmet Otter's Jug Band Christmas (one of the more bizarre muppetish movies, coming in well behind Labyrinth in that line up, but fairly entertaining. One of my friends has a Emmet Otter party every year. You can watch Emmet here). This was a fun movie and I enjoyed it. Also rather surprisingly, it did a good job of straddling the entertaining and important message line. Sure most movies have some kind of moral like friends are good or don't be a mercenary, but this movie did a good job in having more than just a moral. No surprise that the movie deals with inclusion and prejudice that is clear from the first 5 minutes, if you didn't already notice it in the trailers. What it does well is approach the complexity of this issue in a modern world. It acknowledges that there are many different groups and that everyone experiences prejudice and has prejudices that they don't recognize and that this can lead to dangerous results when combined with fear. The writers did a good job of showing how interacting with furry animals who are different and have different backgrounds helps everyone. They also did a good job of framing changing attitudes as a progression, something that must be iteratively approached and reevaluated. This careful writing helped this movie succeed for me where Wall-E failed. I really really disliked the way Wall-E was so simplistic and heavy handed; Zootopia is able to incorporate an important, sensitive issue into the story so it contributed to it and felt like it belonged.

What I didn't: I feel like there were some major flaws in the evil plan, mostly along the lines of if you release a bunch of velociraptors in Jurassic Park, you really need to have a plan ready to make sure you can get them back in their dinoboxes. Sadly, there were no dinosaurs in this movie so the analogy is not perfect. Having just thought about the fact that there are no dinosaurs in this movie, I must admit that is a disappointment, but no more than other non-dinosaur featuring movies and I digress. Why does every government ever have secret prisons and evil government labs? Is this just the nature of the universe or do they come standard issue: "Congratulations on founding your country, here is your starter kit with secret prison, evil lab, duplicitious spy organization with only one spy, and a young charismatic leader with zero qualifications. Enjoy." I guess I just assumed that countries were kind of like toys you buy "Batteries and evil labs not included." I don't like that the dad bunny was an extreme caricature while all the other characters were fairly normal and well developed. Why do they always catch the villain monologueing? Basic villain training should include don't carefully explain your plan. Ever.

Who should watch this? It is a fun animated movie and the message is very relevant.

Would I watch it again? Yeah. I will absolutely watch the sloths.

Just a sad note on what could have been. In one of these scenerios we would have survived much better; in the other everyone would have almost certainly died. I guess there is no net gain.