Animal Crackers
Bigger, noisier, more chicken shit. Yup. It’s a sequel to a billion dollar IP.
Zootopia 2
Directors: Jared Bush, Byron Howard • Writer: Jared Bush
Starring [English]: Ginnifer Goodwin, Jason Bateman, Ke Huy Quan, Andy Samberg, Idris Elba, Alan Tudyk, Everybody Fucking Else
USA • 1hr 48mins
Opens Hong Kong November 27 • I
Grade: B
Nearly 10 years ago (2016 if you must know) Disney stepped into a pile of race relations and discrimination shit it most definitely did not want on its shoe with Zootopia, a buddy cop adventure comedy about a rookie ZPD rabbit cop and a street smart felonious fox teaming up to bust a speciesist drug conspiracy. Hilariously, after repeatedly telling everyone how inclusive it was the House of Mouse probably didn’t enjoy being the subject of a million op-eds about shutting up and making cartoons despite Zootopia being one of its more clever – and more genuine – takes on the subject. Well, always a sucker for punishment, the newly anti-DEI Disney is back with Zootopia 2, for a buddy cop adventure comedy about said same rabbit and fox, this time busting up a conspiracy about – and hold on to your shorts – gentrification, land grabs, cultural displacement and erasure. Holy shit, Disney, take a fainting couch.
As with any US$1.06 billion-grossing product, returning animator-writer-directors Jared Bush and partner Byron Howard, who gave us the Oscar-winning (!) Encanto, have doubled down on everything that wasn’t really the reason Zootopia worked. There’s less creativity in the action set pieces, way more A-listers lending their voices and a clear dodge around the race issue. “Nice to see we can overcome our differences and get along,” is the basic message this time, delivered by Zootopia’s new mayor, Brian Winddancer, amusingly played by Patrick Warburton (The Tick). It’s kind of cowardly and really, really clangs considering the rest of the movie. That said, none of that is going to stop this from making another billion dollars. Ka-ching!
I guess the beaver is Canadian?
Zootopia is well on its way to perfection and the ZPD’s first minority hires, rabbit Judy Hopps (Ginnifer Goodwin) and reformed fox grifter Nick Wilde (Jason Bateman) are officially partners who, in classic buddy cop fashion, make a mess on a bust and get hauled into the chief’s office for a reaming. Chief Bogo (Idris Elba) threatens them with separation and disciplinary action because that’s what always happens. During said mess, however, Judy finds some shed skin and suspects there’s a snake on the loose in Zootopia. That hasn’t happend in decades, something about terror and snakes and reptiles being run out of town. Indeed there is a snake in Zootopia, Gary (Ke Huy Quan, and the name Gary is never not funny), and he’s there to find evidence of the truth about Zootopia, its harmony-inducing weather walls, the flashy Tundratown development and the city’s first family, the Lynxleys, lead by patriarch Milton (David Strathairn) and including the black sheep Pawbert (Andy Samberg). Again: Buddy cop comedy, so Judy and Nick wind up on the run, needing “to clear our names” and helping Gary. Also helping is conspiracy nut Nibbles Maplestick (Fortune Feimster), a beaver who takes them to Zootopia’s Marsh Market reptile ghetto, where the ornery basilisk Jesús (Danny Trejo, and the more Danny Trejo the better) puts them on the right track.
Credit to Bush and Howard for finding a way to slip a comment on stolen land, historical erasure of targeted communities and the time-honoured tradition of the wealthy throwing the poor from their homes to make way for shiny shopping malls, expensive houses and craft breweries. But of course, Z2 was in production long before November 2024, and after the Jimmy Kimmel fisaco Disney is probably in no mood to draw attention to the ice coldest of hot takes. Parents and guardians will be there for it or they won’t, and few in the young audience are going to care about a debate over reparations. Is this bright and colourful? Yes. Does it zip along at a frantic pace? Yes. Does it end with heartwarming (gag), emotional confessions about Judy and Nick’s insecurities and how they feel about each other? You bet it does, so all is right in that part of Disney land. Goodwin and Bateman repeat their curious chemistry, and Quan brings some back door authenticity to Gary. But Zootopia 2 also lacks the visual spark of the first film (there’s big straight to Disney+ energy here) and the damn-the-torpedoes messaging we could all use a bit of these days. It’s been replaced by voice cameos from Dwayne Johnson, Macaulay Culkin, Jean Reno, Tig Notaro, Moana herself Auli’i Cravalho, Ed Sheeran (!) – hold on Canucks… Peter Mansbridge (!!, as a moose, duh) and fucking Disney CEO Bob Iger (!!!). Talk about diversion.