Officer Judy Hopps (Ginnifer Goodwin) and her companion Nick Wilde (Jason Bateman) are back on the case in “Zootopia 2,” but the partners are having a little bit of trouble with their communication.
The animated film’s main characters are essentially continuing their struggle from the first film, sans all those pesky predisposed notions about each other because of their species. In fact, Hopps and Wilde’s big save-the-day moment after taking down the evil mayor seems to have brought Zootopia closer than ever. That is, if you’re a mammal.
Like the first film, “Zootopia 2” deals with the biases animals lay upon each other, furthering its intended commentary on how people treat each other based on race or economic background. In this case, though, the story has extended beyond the mammals of the world and centers its focus on the reptiles by way of the delightfully earnest Gary de’Snake, voiced by Ke Huy Quan.
The casting here is relevant because of Goodwin and Bateman’s already established chemistry and the all-but-universal love for Oscar winner Quan. While those factors are important in any film, they play a pivotal role in “Zootopia 2” because miscommunication is central to the whole of the story. Judy steamrolls, Nick tries to run and Gary can’t trust anyone enough to really talk to them until halfway through the second act. It’s grating, but in a way that serves the overall narrative. Still, a lesser cast would have resulted in much less forgiveness for those frustrations.
With their overall roles already established outside of new introductions, “Zootopia 2” is the quintessential sequel. While not typically noteworthy, it’s worth mentioning here because the first was considered relatively essential due to its easily digestible metaphor of the “other” that helped have a complicated conversation with a younger audience. “Zootopia 2” is not breaking down any new barriers so much as it’s furthering an already established conversation and, in our era of “everything must be bigger and better than the last,” it feels relevant to highlight that this is more of an expansion of the same conversation rather than breaking new ground in the way “Zootopia” did back in 2016.
Similarly, the animation remains on par with what we saw in the original in that it’s visually stunning and bright and pop-y in the way that you’d expect a film that features a gazelle voiced by Shakira to look. The pop star returns with a new single here, featured twice in the film. “Zoo” will have audiences dancing in the same way “Try Everything” did in the first, but be warned: this entry is way more of an ear worm. You will be mumbling “Zoo-oo-oo” under your breath for days to come and your kids will most definitely be begging to hear the song on repeat. But hey, it’s a bop!
“Zootopia 2” is a textbook example of the fact that sometimes more of the same isn’t necessarily a bad thing. The animal kingdom is more than just mammals, and no one is free until all of us are free. Though the story isn’t breaking new ground, it’s expanding on a complex idea that is necessary for viewers both young and old. This time, the message isn’t just “our differences make us beautiful” but “more than the conventionally attractive or ‘normal’ deserve a place in this world.” There are strong conversations about gender hiding in there, too, but diving into that would take us too far into spoiler territory.
If there’s one misfire worth calling out, it’s the introduction of Maple Nibblestick. While Fortune Feimster’s voiceover performance is perfectly admirable, it’s the second recent example of validating fringe conspiracy theorists in mainstream cinema. Ultimately, Nibbles serves as Judy and Nick’s key to the reptilian underworld. While her character is essential to the story, it wasn’t necessary to make her a conspiracy theorist podcaster. Depiction doesn’t equal endorsement, of course, but in a film for kids that uses metaphor to relay messages, maybe we can wait until we’re out of the disinformation age to prop up characters that peddle in misinformation.
Nibbles’ unfortunate job aside, there’s a lot to love in “Zootopia 2.” Given the success of the first film, it sounds dismissive to simply say that the movie does its job as a sequel. However, it does just that! There’s nothing groundbreaking here, but it’s a perfectly enjoyable continuation of the story that introduces new players into the ensemble and literally expands the world of Zootopia in a mostly entertaining and meaningful way.
