Zootopia
2016
D: Byron Howard, Rich Moore
**********
Pros: Animation, Nick Wilde, Some Good Themes
Cons: Some Wasted Potential, Overtly Flawed Protagonist, Twist Villain, Fridge Logic
It’s not every year an anthropomorphic movie breaks into mainstream political discourse, and Zootopia definitely deserves credit for that. This movie demonstrates how many racial prejudices can still be held by otherwise enlightened people without turning them into caricatures. The latter element is why it’s remarkably unfair to call this cartoon “Crash with Furries.” Still, the movie does have its flaws.
It takes place in a world in which anthropomorphic animals coexist with each other, albeit with a respectful dichotomy acknowledged between predator and prey animals. The conflict arises when a conspiracy awakens a race war between the two. The predators are treated with suspicion, and the movie even unwittingly makes a good argument against majoritarian democracy by reminding us that the Prey outnumber the Predators nine to one, and can just do anything they want to them. The villainess is also an example of how social justice can be corrupted by sociopaths with an inflated sense of victimhood.
The predator-prey relationship is also an effective allegory for the relationship between the sexes. There’s a reason why anthropomorphic predator-prey relationships in anthropomorphic fiction usually depict the male as a predator and the female as prey. The message is that these differences can be acknowledged in a civilized way that’s complementary while resisting latent barbarism. Anthropomorphism is good at symbolizing our animal side and its relationship to our humanity. In fact, sexy pop singer Gazelle (Shakira) intentionally invokes this with her buff predator backup dancers. Even when the Race War flares up, she continues to stand up for them. She’s an admirable character, but her mature call for reconciliation makes her a blatant Steel Man for politically active celebrities. The choice of her as prey is important, but I was almost expecting an homage to her “She-Wolf” video.
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| Of course, I had to draw her as a thicc furry. |
Still, some of the politics are flawed. A problem with the movie’s message is that, while tolerance is extolled, there are acceptable targets. In other words: All animals should get a long, but not the sheep, screw them. In fact, conceptual art of early film concepts depict “The Meadowlands” as a distinctly Middle-American habitat of suspicious sheep. Dehumnization is executed in that the male sheep all have zoologically accurate sheep’s eyes: soulless and creepy. This design is cheated with the ewes, who have more expressive human eyes. This is primarily because the villainess, Deputy Mayor Bellwether (Jenny Slate) is a twist villain, which was already worn out when Disney made this movie. Aside from one minor character in the first scene, the sheep are all villains and are then viewed upon with suspicion by the cops at the end of the movie in way we’re not supposed to see as bad. They even had a golden opportunity to address this problem by having sheep on the police force doing undercover work, but apparently someone thought the “Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing” pun was too good to pass up.
I also can’t help but think that the Jumbeaux’s (John DiMaggio) refusal to serve the foxes (perhaps he’s preventing to known charlatans from making a straw purchase and knows an adult fennec fox when he sees one) as reminiscent of this. Contrast this with an alternate version of the scene which is genuinely funny in a way that plays to Jason Bateman’s strengths. Another odd insinuation is that the presence of fox repellant is indicative of systemic racism, but it makes sense to have species-specific modes of self-defense in a world in which people come in all sizes and physiologies.
Our heroine is Judy Hopps (Ginnifer Goodwin), an ambitious rabbit who trains hard to become the first cop in Zootopia of her species. Disappointed by being relegated to a menial job as a meter maid, she starts acting outside her brief in ways that make her seem unlikably irresponsible. For example, eager to insert herself on another cop’s call, she causes a kaiju battle in Little Rodentia just to catch a shoplifter (Alan Tudyk as a weasel). And yet people judge Superman for the final battle in Man of Steel. After Chief Bogo (Idris Elba) rightfully dresses her down for it, she has the nerve to heap false hope onto the distraught wife of a missing person while he was trying to deal with the matter in a mature way. He angrily gives her an ultimatum in which he demands that she solve the unsolvable case in 48 hours. It’s more than she deserves, in spite of her contextless deuteragonist’s impassioned defense of her in one scene. She ends up teaming up with vulpine con man Nick Wilde (an extremely well-cast Jason Bateman) and solves part of the conspiracy, but ends up making a racially insensitive remark during an interview that triggers the Race War.
Another problem is that she’s a phenomenally corrupt cop. She uses politics to blackmail Jumbeaux using a health code violation she should be writing him up for any way. She then, with the help of a mob boss (Maurice LaMarche) tortures the aforementioned weasel for information. She also happens to be the godmother of said mob boss’s daughter (Leah Latham), whom Judy saved from the Little Rodentia disaster (that she caused). I’d love to see the Internal Affairs case on her.
Far more likable is Nick Wilde. Unlike George Clooney in Fantastic Mr. Fox, Jason Bateman is perfect for the role of a vulpine trickster, perfectly combining dry wit, smarminess, and mischief. I relate to him a lot, especially his past as a bullied child (Kath Soucie) and its influence on his adulthood cynicism. His angry reaction to Judy’s obliviously offensive comments during the climax is a remarkably realistic depiction of how a friendship can come to a head, with unspoken and generally tolerated problems all coming out at that one moment. At the end of the movie his help earns him his childhood dream of becoming a policeman. Although I was wondering where his mother was in that scene. He's a great character who singlehandedly elevates the movie.
Other characters include Gideon Grey (Phil Johnston), a childhood bully of Judy’s who eventually grew into a good person, Nick’s con-man partner Finnick (Tom Lister, Jr.), a fennec fox. I personally think having a small cute animal with an big black man’s voice is a bit on the lame side humor-wise. Other cast members include Nate Torrence as a morbidly obese cheetah, Bonnie Hunt, Don Lake, Octavia Spencer, Raymond Persi, Fuschia!, Katie Lowes, Josh Dallas, Rich Moore, Byron Howard, Jared Bush, Mark Rhino Smith, John Lavelle, Kristen Bell, and Zach King.
Aside from the twist villain, the plot is creative enough, but its conspiracy is very flawed. Bellwether’s plan is to infect predator animals with juice from a berry known to cause people to go feral. This is administered via paintball gun, and at times this requires some impossible aiming skills, as lampshaded by one of the villains. I’m 100% for unrealistic gunplay in the name of stylized action, but not in the name of lazy story-telling. This plan is also dependent upon utter incompetence from forensic scientists because no one can identify the cause of this despite this plant’s being well known by farmers. They even miss the juice that’s on the predators’ bodies! At one point we even see a predator getting shot with one in a crowded public area without anybody catching on. Desperate to coverup the problem, Mayor Lionheart (JK Simmons) rounds up all the affected people. Despite not being a part of Bellwether’s conspiracy he’s somehow able to do this practically the instant they’re infected. It’s never addressed how frighteningly efficient the Zootopian government is at disappearing people with the help of an extensive surveillance system.
What frustrates me about this movie is that its original concept was far more interesting and creative. It took place in a borderline dystopia in which all the predator animals were obliged to wear a shock collar that responded to emotions. In an interesting twist, the endowment of one has become ritualized as a passage into adulthood. Its superiority was demonstrated by the fact that Nick was originally supposed to be the protagonist. There was also an original and complex secondary villain that was replaced by a hackneyed Godfather cringeref. Unfortunately, Pixar suggested the premise was “too dark,” which kinda funny considering that it “humorously” suggested that one of its more lovable protagonists was killed to make a toilet seat cover. Party poopers. We got cheated out of this so bad.
The animation is brilliant, so much detail with appealing character designs. They even rendered the subtle black-on-black spots of a panther! There’s also a lot of thought that went into the worldbuilding of Zootopia, but some of its logic is flawed. For example, the human analogue to its architecture would be designing buildings to look like random body parts. Also the city recreates various biomes artificially in neat but implausible ways. You’d think a studio so concerned about global warming would see the problem with a giant wall of air conditioners that keep the Tundra sector cold while intentionally heating the desert district with heir exhaust. I know this sounds like a nitpick, but this movie was trying. Still, a lot of the worldbuilding is clever, and I commend the movie for avoiding Carnivore Confusion by limiting anthropomorphism to mammals. The Art of Zootopia is a good insight intto all this, and is actually more enjoyable than the movie. Unfortunately, the movie’s “cinematography” is lackluster and fails to bring out the creative nature of the setting, making it look like a mishmash. Due to the emphasis on such an eclectic environment, however, the usually solid Michael Giacchino contributes a forgettable score. Shakira contributes a memorable song.
While there are some genuinely witty lines (mostly coming from Nick), the movie has a bit too much stupid humor. At one point the movie earns its PG-Rating with nudist colony run by Yax (Tommy Chong). It’s not anatomically correct so as to be inappropriate, but it’s done in a way vulgar and lowbrow enough to be painful. It’s a testament to how wrong the stigma against the G-Rating is. There are way too many lame animal puns, and a decidedly cringe reference to Frozen that the Internet keeps telling me is an exceptionally clever joke. Not to mention the obvious cringeref to Breaking Bad, which will admittedly age pretty well when the show becomes relatively obscure (let's face it people will be watching Zootopia for much longer). Despite this, there is an extremely good stealth pun in which a Lincoln Town Car Limousine is being driven by a panther (Jesse Corti).
Zootopia is intertaining and intermittently insightful. Its relevance to current politics is a bit surprising (albeit not so much when you consider its association to one of the most ideologically toxic fandoms in existence). The positive depiction of cops makes it a bit outdated as a liberal work, and I think Lion King is a far more appropriate story of the exploitation of race relations.
