Plot Summary – When Judy Hopps, a rookie officer in the Zootopia Police Department, sniffs out a sinister plot, she enlists the help of a con artist to solve the case in order to prove her abilities to Chief Bogo.

★★★★★ 

Rewatched 16 Aug, 2020

It’s rare that I change my rating for a movie upon rewatch but as a more mature person, I found so much meaning and depth in this film. Zootopia (or Zootropolis as Disney+ is insisting its called) is, in essence, a film about the first bunny cop trying to prove herself while solving a missing-animals case, but there’s so much more to this film than that. I’ll be covering the race allegories in a separate article but there are so many other metaphors in this film. There’s the sexism metaphor and its display of how women are treated in a male-dominated workplace. There’s references to drugs and influence by drugs. Discrimination and stereotyping of the LGBTQ community. Media changing the narrative and so many other incredibly complex and layered themes sprinkled throughout the film. None of these words are ever uttered though, it’s all very implicit and the message is told through allegory. This is why it’s such a revolutionary film because it tells such a great message in such a simple way that anyone can understand its themes. It certainly helps that the story is so interesting and suspenseful. The references to Breaking Bad and The Godfather amongst others definitely show the attention to detail and nuance that this film has. The voice acting by Ginnifer Goodwin and Idris Elba are great but the standout performance has to be Jason Bateman as Nick Wilde. The direction by Byron Howard (Tangled) and Richard Moore (Wreck-It Ralph) never fails to stun me with its unrelenting pace. It’s not a ‘movie about animals for kids’, it’s a rich and layered masterpiece with an amazing world. Disney really nailed it with this one.