WELCOME TO THE URBAN JUNGLE.
Judy Hopps makes her dream come alive as the first rabbit to enter Zootopia’s police force; on parking duty, she stumbles across a plot where predator animals are disappearing.
Two of the directors behind Bolt (2008) and Wreck-It Ralph (2012) joined forces for this attractive and hugely enjoyable 3D adventure that cleverly plays around with the difference between real animals and this genre’s anthropomorphic, Disneyfied characters. That becomes a key part of a buddy-cop story that pairs up the rabbit with a con-man fox.
Well-made and witty, with amusing voice work; good entertainment for kids and adults alike. A sloth steals the film’s funniest scene.
2016-U.S. Animated. 108 min. Color. Widescreen. Directed by Byron Howard, Rich Moore. Screenplay: Jared Bush, Phil Johnston. Song: ”Try Everything” (performed by Shakira). Voices of Ginnifer Goodwin (Judy Hopps), Jason Bateman (Nick Wilde), Idris Elba (Bogo), Jenny Slate, Nate Torrence, Bonnie Hunt, Tommy Chong, J.K. Simmons, Octavia Spencer, Shakira, Kristen Bell.
Trivia: Co-executive produced by John Lasseter. Released in Britain and several other countries as Zootropolis. Followed by Zootopia 2 (2025) and a miniseries, Zootopia+ (2022).
Oscar: Best Animated Feature. Golden Globe: Best Animated Motion Picture.
Quote: “Life isn’t some cartoon musical where you sing a little song and all your insipid dreams magically come true. So let it go.” (Elba)
Last word: “The very first place, well when John [Lasseter] asks you to pitch movies, new ideas for movies, he asks you to come in with at least three ideas, because he doesn’t want you to just put all your eggs in one basket. And I think Nathan Greno and I who just directed Tangled came in and we pitched I think six ideas to John. And what a lot of those movies had in common were these anthropomorphic animal characters. And John got very excited about that. He said, well I don’t know about this one, but I like the animal characters and he got very excited about this idea that he said, ‘I will fully support any movie that shows animals running around in tiny clothes.’” (Howard, Slash Film)