Zootopia 2

Every bit as exciting and heartwarming and imaginative as the Oscar-winning original and maybe even funnier.

There have been better animated sequels and more epic ones, but has there ever been a fluffier follow-up than this bouncy, buoyant caper starring at least half the nature world?

Disney producing a beautifully animated film full of cute anthropomorphic animals may not be much of a surprise, but the quality of the screenplay is.

Wherever it winds up going, the Judy-Nick friendship emerges as one of the more complex and satisfying bits of character interplay in contemporary Disney animation.

Returning directors Jared Bush and Byron Howard once again blend the high-concept political messaging about embracing diversity with a blitz of visual gags, pop-culture references, and endearingly silly characters that ensure Zootopia 2 never feels too preachy. The film moves at a breakneck pace, driven by several major chase scenes and a flood of jokes that come so fast that even if one doesn’t land, there’s something else to laugh at a moment later.

For a movie that was in so many ways about a country mouse (bunny) coming to the big city and finding endless varieties of wildlife, both upright and shady, the “Zootopia” sequel spends too much of its time away from its mammalian metropolis. Even Nick Wilde — no longer scheming, more in touch with his feelings — doesn’t feel quite so wild now. The fun caper spirit of the first movie is alive enough to carry Bush and Howard’s film, but you can’t help feel like sequel-ization also means domestication.

There are a few laughs in Z2: of course there are. But they are algorithmically generated and corporately approved. It’s the kind of movie you put on an iPad to keep the children quiet on a long plane or train journey; nothing wrong with that of course, but the heart and soul are lacking.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

I don't know why I don't seem to love these films as much as the fandom does.

The animation is A+++++. But the story is a little too convoluted, especially for kids. Also, the story's premise didn't have to be so diabolical. You don't always need evil villains. Sometimes the problem can be a simple misunderstanding, resolved with a dramatic solution.

Leave it to Disney. They took most of what made the first Zootopia arresting (no pun intended) and charming and trashed it in an over-busy, overstuffed, over-woke stew of a mess. The plot, to the extent there is one, is hopelessly convoluted. Or, more accurately, it's not complex enough to be convoluted. It simply doesn't make any sense. A good part of the film does not even take place in the world of the original; it goes to remote outlying places that apparently were always there to begin with. A lot of these settings and the set piece scenes that take place in them directly pillage...Star Wars. That's right, Star Wars. And if you weren't expecting that, neither was I, and it tells you a lot about what's wrong with this film. Add in some messaging/allegory that at best is boilerplate and at worst is, ironically, bigoted and racist, and you have a film that wastes its likeable characters and voice actors. Not too surprising but yet still disappointing. Disney really should get out of the movie business.

This film reached for the stars, but forgot to keep it's feet planted firmly on the ground. The plot rests precariously on the improbable premise that the villain family, who are stated to be the most imposing and dangerous family, didn't know that the original patent page still existed or where it was. Without that solid base, the ensuing action and drama were seldom gripping. Instead of innovating, the decision of either the directors or Disney itself to replay a lot of the same story and emotional beats from the first film lead to the film feeling very forgettable and regressive to the point that it feels like Z2 both spoofs the qualities that made it's predecessor great and exacerbates it's predecessor's flaws.