By Muhammad Muzammal
assistant arts and entertainment editor
After last year’s Oscar winner “Inside Out,” Disney returns with “Zootopia,” an animated film that like “Inside Out” tackles adult themes and still manages to be funny and exciting.
The film takes place in the titular Zootopia, a perfect society filled with civilized animals – cue the irony. In this city of anthropomorphic animals, a daring, rookie bunny cop named Judy Hopps (Ginnifer Goodwin) is the first of her species to graduate from the police academy.
Transcending the barriers of her kind, Hopps hopes to get some serious police work, per Chief Bogo’s (Idris Elba) orders. Bogo is an intimidating water buffalo behemoth that downgrades Hopps to a traffic cop. Shortly after, Hopps stumbles onto con artist fox, Nick Wilde (Jason Bateman). Wilde and Hopps work together to solve a conspiracy that runs rampant throughout the city.
From Tundratown to Sahara Square, “Zootopia” is the collective result of the brain trust of Disney’s best and brightest.
From the creative minds of director/screenwriters Byron Howard, Rich Moore and Jared Bush, “Zootopia” is a kaleidoscope of colors, with the palette illuminating the screen in every action sequence.
In addition to being a visually dazzling experience, “Zootopia” is actually funny and wickedly satirical (the city’s local DMV is run by – you guessed it – sloths).
This satire works for “Zootopia,” but there is something important that goes against the film and its good intentions.
Unlike “Inside Out,” “Zootopia” is somewhat political. The film’s clear link between humans and animals has a false logic. Take for example, the movie’s civilized society, where predator and prey live side by side in harmony.
This is illogical as it is physically harmful for noncarnivores to live side by side with carnivores in real life but, even if this year’s presidential election suggests otherwise, it is possible that people can also live peacefully and in harmony.
A carnivore is not a human nor should it be compared to one. As a result, when the movie progresses, its theme of the importance of embracing one’s own characteristics seems muddled when applied to humans if the predator’s desires are not to be suppressed when it hunts its prey. Do humans operate as such?
“Zootopia” takes us on a ride to explore a fascinating, democratic theme but it complicates itself in the process. Still, it is an entertaining, funny film with satire that is not only silly but, when effective, also deeply rooted in the real world. It is a wonderful children’s movie.