Highbrow Kid Stuff

Not everyone is enamored with the saccharine-sweet films from the admittedly fine folks at Pixar, and not everyone loves CGI-produced animated films the way they love good old-fashioned cell animation. Still, it would be hard to deny that the field has come light-years since Toy Story unleashed its truly terrifying concept on the world, and every so often a sincerely special animated movie comes along. Zootopia is one of those. The newest outing from Walt Disney Animation Studios is a genuinely clever take on very adult topics like race relations, sexism, strained relationships and the corrupting nature of power, and not only a triumph in terms of storytelling for kids and parents simultaneously (which is actually much harder than you might think), but a wise step from a company that has traditionally/unfortunately often told little girls all over the world to just take it easy already, because a man is on the way to fix everything.

We follow the anthropomorphized antics of Judy Hopps (Big Love's Ginnifer Goodwin), the first ever bunny to join the police force in the city of Zootopia, a glorious metropolis where animals who've evolved past predator/prey instinct live side by side in varying biome districts. All her life, Judy has been told there would never be a bunny cop, they're just too small, but her strong sense of justice and (borderline irritating) positive attitude mean that she not only makes it to the police academy, but she graduates with flying colors and realizes her dream of moving to the big city.

Zootopia, by the way, is cool as hell and looks beautiful the first time we see the city through Judy's eyes, via brief aerial shots of dizzying rainforest treetop canopies, scorching deserts, miniature rodent neighborhoods and so on. The attention to detail is staggering, and there is an actual feeling that the city lives and breathes.

No one takes Judy seriously, though, and she winds up working as a mere meter maid. Still, she does her job well, and through a series of right place, right time moments, she is thrust into the midst of a clandestine plot alongside Nick, a slick con artist fox (played amazingly by Jason Bateman) with a tragic past, and the pair must fight the odds to find the bad guys and return order to their city.

Allowing the legitimately funny moments to eclipse whatever paint-by-numbers plot points one would expect from a kid's movie is the way to go here, and the important lesson we're helped to relearn is that you should never judge a book by its cover (unless that book is about sloths). Sorry if that sounds cliché, but the greatest hits are the ones that ring true forever.

Goodwin's turn as the flawed and ironically human Judy is fantastic, as is Bateman's Nick, and we can feel actual, tangible onscreen chemistry between animated animals. With a plot so telegraphed, the ultimate payoff is perhaps a tad underwhelming, but smaller moments and enjoyable cameos from the likes of Tommy Chong as a confused nudist bison make up for small missteps. Either way, the meat of the story never underestimates children, which is huge, and who doesn't love an unlikely team-up anyway? Besides, the beautiful animation is worth the price of admission alone, and if nothing else, we can all be reminded that we may need help from time to time, regardless of age, even when we truly do believe in ourselves.

Zootopia
With Goodwin, Bateman and JK Simmons
Violet Crown and Regal Cinemas
PG, 108 min.

Santa Fe Reporter