REVIEW: ‘Zootopia 2’ Is Outmoded But Still Effective

Disney’s Zootopia 2 would be a substantially better movie if its main characters, Judy Hopps (Ginnifer Goodwin) and Nick Wilde (Jason Bateman), were not police officers. It’s an outmoded point of view that feels incongruous with the journey the characters go on. However, outside of the disappointing decision to keep them on the force, Zootopia 2 is an effective story about belonging and the politics of exclusion.

Directed by Jared Bush and Byron Howard, Zootopia 2 begins with Nick joining the Zootopia police force as Judy’s partner. They are the only small animals in a force dominated by big, predominantly masculine predators. They’re discriminated against, and despite having saved Zootopia in the original 2016 film and helped uncover a major government corruption conspiracy, the pair still finds themselves having to prove themselves to everyone around them.

In large part, the setup works. Just because Judy and Nick did some heroic work doesn’t mean that the rest of society would suddenly stop being prejudiced. In fact, if everyone magically began loving the pair and respecting them, things would be a bit off.

Zootopia 2 seeks deeper meanings that are still understandable for all ages. 

Instead, Zootopia 2 sets the pair up not only as a platonic odd couple but also as an allegory for interracial relationships. It’s played with enough finesse as not to feel hamfisted, but it’s also straightforward enough that audiences of any age should be able to catch on.

Nick’s joining the police force is even explained fairly reasonably. He wants to feel like he’s part of a pack. As a fox, he’s always been more inherently a solitary creature. But since meeting Judy, he’s really wanted to be part of something bigger. So, going along with her plan to become a police officer and her partner feels like the easiest way to do so, even if he is clearly indifferent to the job and its many rules and norms.

The issue—besides the tacit complicity in the inherent violence of policing Zootopia 2 commits by making its heroes police officers—is that the police immediately betray Judy and Nick. As soon as the pair starts to crack a new case about an illegally imported snake, they become full-fledged fugitives from the law, and their colleagues chase them all across the city.

The found family lessons are threatened by the characters’ commitment to the police force.

By remaining committed to a “pack” that so clearly distrusts and abhors them, despite repeated signals that the police are not a source of safety or security for Nick, Judy, or Zootopia at large, their consummate commitment to being cops never allows the pair to learn the lesson that a pack is not truly a pack if they are not committed to everyone in the pack. Especially given the movie’s strong found family themes otherwise.

When Nick and Judy first discover that a snake may have found its way into Zootopia for the first time in generations, it causes a massive panic. Snakes have been discriminated against and outlawed for decades because of an incident in the distant past. It’s a very poignant allusion to contemporary politics of human exclusion and “illegal” immigration.

The injustice is perpetuated by the powerful oligarch Milton Lynxley (David Strathairn) and his family. They control the new mayor of Zootopia, Mayor Winddancer (Patrick Warburton), a former action star-turned puppet for the Lynxleys’ bid to expand their territory by destroying the one neighborhood in Zootopia where reptiles and sea mammals still live. Again, it’s a pretty solid metaphor for gentrification, even if some of the jokes in the bayou-like environment are a bit reductive and offensive.

The sequel hits a high note with its terrific animal-related gags.

But of course, once Judy and Nick actually meet Gary De’Snake (Ke Huy Quan), it turns out that he’s lovely. He’s on a mission to uncover a long-lost Zootopia secret that will help vindicate snakes and allow his family and all of the reptiles to return to Zootopia for good. Alongside conspiracy theorist beaver Nibbles Maplestick (Fortune Feimster) and family black sheep Pawbert Lynxley (Andy Samberg), the group bonds as a “pack” of their own while dodging the police and trying to vindicate Gary.

Zootopia 2 is littered with hilarious or clever visual gags made possible by the animal kingdom. At every turn, an animal does something that references the real world, a well-known joke, or its animal nature in a clever way.

There are one or two jokes that fall into Disney’s category of unearned self-awareness, where they reference the fact that they are a corporate conglomerate that owns everything under the entertainment sun, and those jokes feel uncomfortable. But otherwise, every single one of these gags is welcome.

An impactful story despite the police story at the center.

In fact, the movie should have even more of them. If it weren’t so bogged down in Nick and Judy’s entanglement with the police and their falling out with Chief Bogo (Idris Elba), perhaps there would have been more room to continue exploring the possibilities of Zootopia’s inhabitants and their relationships to one another.

Despite that aggravating element, the movie does tie most of its themes together well. You come away from the movie not feeling like racism and prejudice are solved forever, so much as you feel inspired to stand up for each other’s dignity in the face of those who would put your neighbors down.

Zootopia 2 may be somewhat outmoded in its focus on police as the heroes of its story, but the journey the characters go on together and the friends they make along the way help the movie land with elephant-sized impact.

Zootopia 2 is playing in theaters everywhere November 26th.