QUICK REVIEW: Zootopia (Zootropolis)

Howdy ladies and gents, time for a new film review and today I’m finally getting around to talking about the latest film from Disney; Zootopia (aka Zootropolis for us over here in the UK). I’ve been looking forward to this film for a while since I heard a lot of good things about the footage shown at D23 last year, and thanks to Cineworld and their early Unlimited screenings I’ve gotten to see the film a little earlier than its eventually release a few weeks from now.

So the story goes down like this:

“In a world where animals have adapted to the world like humans, Judy Hopps is bunny who has dreamed of being a police officer since she was young and when she finally reaches her goal things don’t initially turn out the way she’d hoped. However when a big case comes her way, she must form an unlikely alliance with a crafty fox named Nick Wilde to uncover the mystery of her case and prove herself as a true enforcer of the law.”

Zootopia’s story represents Disney at it’s best with a tale that was familiar, yet fun, hilarious and heartwarming. One of my favourite aspects of this film was that it was able to strike that balance between being funny and serious, the sense of humour and timing of the jokes whether they’re physical or verbal, they’re done here so well. When the film wasn’t being light and funny, it did touch upon themes of prejudice, discrimination and stereotypes, and it was handled with such realism and felt very relevant to present times. This story felt like classic Disney with all the standard codes and conventions you’d expect with certain character and story beats, but with some modernization that made the film feel even fresher than previous Disney films especially with the use of technology and dialogue. I was surprised by how much this film got me emotionally, there were some absolutely delightful and joyful moments in this film, but then there were some super emotional and heartbreaking moments that resonated with some of my life experiences that reminded me of why I love Disney films so much.

The cast was all great in their roles. Ginnifer Goodwin was incredible as Officer Judy Hopps, this character was so tenacious, upbeat and relatable that she was easy to root for and I loved her backstory and journey throughout the film. And Jason Bateman was also awesome as Nick Wilde, Nick was cool, slick and had a way with words, but beyond his external demeanour was a much deeper character who was just as relatable as Judy. Together Judy and Nick had some wonderful chemistry and some of their more dramatic scenes together were some of my favourite parts of the film. Idris Elba was badass as Chief Bogo, this guy was really good and Elba really excelled in this role where you could feel his charm, intensity and personality through this character even though you couldn’t see his face.  J.K. Simmons was great as Mayor Leodore Lionheart, much like Elba, Simmons’ voice added an extra layer of awesomeness to the character and made them more engaging. Jenny Slate did was a wonderful job as she was both cute and funny as Dawn Bellwether,  Tommy Chong and Octavia Spencer were good as Yax and Mrs. Otterton, and Nate Torrence was just lovely as Officer Benjamin Clawhauser, because he was so bubbly and funny. Shakira was also fun as Gazelle, Bonnie Hunt and Don Lake were great as Bonnie and Stu Hopps, Alan Tudyk had some great moments as Duke Weaselton, Maurice LaMarche did very well as Mr. Big and Raymond S. Persi had some of the best moments as Flash.

Oh and the presentation was AMAZING! I don’t know how Disney have kept doing it, but with one of their new films come out, they find a way to up themselves when it comes to the visual side of things with insanely good CGI and art direction. This film’s locations, lighting and weather effects looked so real that if you took the animals out of the equation it would look pretty close to a live-action film. And speaking of the animals of them were uniquely crafted little such great attention to detail with the hair, facial and body movements, and I liked how the animators were able to make these humanoid characters retain all of their animal-like qualities. And the film score by Michael Giacchino was very nice and the song “Try Everything” by Shakira was really catchy too.

At the end of the day with Zootopia, Disney are still teaching life lessons and providing audiences young and old with entertaining material which is topical, lighthearted, emotional and funny. I cannot recommend this film enough as it may be my favourite Disney film in recent memory and I can’t wait to see it again.

Rating: 8.5/10

So have you seen or are you going to watch Zootopia? Whatever your thoughts are be sure to drop them in the comments below and I’ll see ya on the next review, laters! 😀