The plot of Zootopia is a typical buddy cop plot on the surface. A young rabbit called Judy Hopps aspires to be the first bunny on the police force in a city where predators and prey live together in peace. What happens after? She gets roped into solving what started as finding a missing otter, becomes uncovering a conspiracy that some have compared to Crack Cocaine, due to the predators in the movie treated in a similar way in the movie to african americans. Based on that, I'd believe Disney would do that as a theme, as one thing Disney movies are well known for is teaching messages to kids that need to be taught, just in a way that it never comes off as the vaguely disguised Edutainment. As for the plot itself, its kinda predictable. In comparison to Frozen and Big Hero 6, the "shock reveal" of the villain I could see coming. Is it just because of Frozen and Big Heron 6? Maybe.
What makes a good buddy cop movie is the characters, and in disney style, I find the characters really enjoyable. They're all unique, playing with the animal theme, and even using it to make some clever jokes. The obvious case is the Sloth run DMV, but some others I thought was Kick Wilde feeling Bellwether... hair? wool? What's more appropriate? Regardless, the clearly pirated copies of Zootopiafied disney movies got a laugh out of me along with Mr Big. I think just naming him gives away the joke, but at least Maurice LaMarche does the role spectacually. It's been a while since I've seen a good crime boss, can you blame me? On the subject of voice acting, the two main leads, Ginnifer Goodwin, who voices Officer Hopps, and Jason Bateman, who voices Nick Wilde also play their parts spectacually, and work off each other well. It helps when the buddy cops actually see themselves as equals, take stabs at eachother when they can. I get so sick of the "one's competent, and the other's a stereotype of black people, a kid, an idiot, throw whatever stereotype you want here.
The animation is standard 3D animation, which I'm not complaining about, it still looks great, its just that it doesn't, to me, have a distinct look to it in terms of style outside of the theme of the movie, it's more of the transition from 2D to 3D. Still good, just not as unique. Music though, is it just me or has music been left behind a bit in this burst of Disney animation? Most movies have a theme you distinctly remember, that one song, and nothing else. You can use that arguement for other disney animated movies, but I personally think its worse now. That being said, Shakira - Try Everything is a good song, and I am beyond thankful that it hasn't caught on as much as something like Let it Go did. Fun fact, the subtitle for this review was going to be either "That Rac... Speciest?" or "Try everything... except for the drug plants, don't try those". As with most of the Disney movies I've seen, some live action ones that can be loosely described as a movie excluded, I do enjoy this. It was a fun movie. Serious when it needs to be, but knows when to have a laugh. When my only issue is that it's a bit predictable, being more of an issue with the type of movie rather then the movie itself, its doing its job right. I've got two interesting cases to review for Sunday, the Nanoblocks Eevee and Mewtwo sets, until then, avoid the Night howlers, "drugs are bad, m'kay"
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