Zootopia

There are movies with good timing and then there are movies with good timing. Zootopia takes the carrot cake for delivering exactly the right message of tolerance and the evils of ethnic (or, in this case, species) stereotyping at exactly the time when this country needs it most – when certain political candidates are running entire presidential campaigns on intolerance and hate.

Now, whether or not this cartoon will have any effect on our cultural landscape is impossible to tell, but it wasn’t for lack of trying.

It is the future of the anthropomorphic mammal community and predatory feral instincts are (supposedly) a thing of the past. Lions and lambs live together in harmony (as mayor and vice-mayor, no less).  Crime still exists, however, so young Judy Hopps (voice of Ginnifer Goodwin) dreams of being the first rabbit police officer of Zootopia. Judy is one of hundreds of siblings, demonstrating that when it comes to predatory behavior, biology can be suppressed, but when in comes to reproduction, biology can’t be … suppressed. Don’t worry, this movie is mostly for children; you don’t have to get it.

The ambitious go-getter hayseed Judy graduates top-of-her-class at the police academy which seems impossible given how much she struggled early on, but hey, cartoon. Sent to Zootopia and put in a room full of her much, much larger law-enforcing mammal peers, Judy is given meter maid duty. All those who flashed on the opening credits of “Charlie’s Angels” raise your hands. I was a little miffed at Judy’s impatience – no matter how talented, rookies ought to start small; it just makes sense. But the little rabbit that could just can’t keep her furry paws off injustice and uncovers an iffy inter-district scam run by rabbit-natural-enemy fox Nick Wilde (Jason Bateman).

Zootopia has a lot of fun with scale. See, Judy makes a tiny police officer, but she also makes a giant rodent. And in Zootopia, there are separate districts for different sizes and types of mammals. In an elephant ice creamery, Judy can barely open the door while in rodentville, Judy has a time making sure buildings are upright after she’s done visiting. Do check out the habitrail skyways there. The supertrain introduction to the diverse big city is straight out of some of sort Disneyland ride. What is it with Disney’s desire to introduce you to various “lands” and then just drive on through. I think I’d like to see a Disney cartoon about a character doing time – it would have to involve some sort of high speed tube ride through various prison territories: “and these are the White Supremecists … ooh, check out that swastika! Hmmm, he looks mean; let’s steer clear of that fellow … moving on, here are the Pig F***ers …”

Don’t make me feel bad about that last joke; if you’re reading this, you’re certainly not a child.

I didn’t love Zootopia the way I loved, say, Wreck-It Ralph or Beauty and the Beast – films in which a character has to overcome his own flawed personality to find peace, but Zootopia found solid ground for messages of perserverance, understanding and racial harmony; that is if you can read between the bunny tracks … which shouldn’t be difficult. As Disney toons go, I’d call this one more clever than funny (although the DMV scene was drop-dead hilarious as both), which means that it ought to appeal to parents forced to watch something over and over and over again. Considering the inclusion message during a time in which we have been encouraged to build fences? You can do a lot worse.

♪If we could police the animals
Just imagine it

Abusing with police brutality
Imagine ramming a highland ram
Punishing a pinniped
What a lot of fun this work could be

If we could bust all the animals
Take them way downtown
Make them all enter guilty pleas
We’d book a rook or two
Capture a cockatoo
And bust hat-stealing monkeys in the trees♫

Rated PG, 108 Minutes
D: Byron Howard, Rich Moore, Jared Bush
W: Jared Bush & Phil Johnston
Genre: Toons that won’t make you wretch
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: Overachievers
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: Bigots

♪ Parody inspired by “If We Could Talk to the Animals”