Movie Review | Zootropolis (Lights, Camera, Action!)

Zootropolis (UK Rating: PG)

In a world populated by anthropomorphic animals, the capital is Zootropolis. Young rabbit, Judy Hopps (voiced by Ginnifer Goodwin), leaves her home in the country to become the first rabbit officer in the ZPD (Zootropolis Police Department), but she's not exactly welcomed with open arms by buffalo chief, Bogo (Idris Elba), who puts her on parking duty. However, she still manages to get involved in a missing mammal case and, helped by scam-artist fox Nick Wilde (Jason Bateman), she is soon untangling a conspiracy that goes right to the top of the city.

This is no idyllic city, as like any other, it's a mixed bag: some residents are law-abiding, some aren't, and the animals judge and discriminate against each other on the grounds of species. Predators - big cats, foxes, wolves - suffer the most. Their instincts have been tamed so that they live side by side with the animals they used to prey upon, but they are still regarded with suspicion, and they don't think much of the docile species either. Not that the film holds back from allowing some of the animals to live up to their stereotypes, though, and that applies especially to the sloths, who are a star turn in their own right. They staff a government department and the main man - sorry, sloth - is Flash, who literally takes all day to provide Judy and Nick with a vital piece of information. Flash is terribly good-natured and frustratingly slow, completely unable to speed up for anybody or anything. For Judy, he's maddening. For the audience, he's completely adorable.

There is, however, an awful lot to enjoy in the film, from the way the public transport system adapts itself to animals of all different shapes and sizes, to the various climate zones they live in. There's no doubt that children will love all of the colour and the action, but there's even more than usual for adults, especially of the movie going variety. Bears uproot palm trees to scratch their backs, á la The Jungle Book from 1967; there are throwaway references to Frozen; and there is even a comic book based on another Disney title…Pig Hero 6. Biggest and best of all, though, is a prolonged pastiche of The Godfather's Don Corleone. Here he's called Mr. Big and he's a tiny shrew. Not only does he sound deliciously like Brando, but the animators perfectly re-create the gestures and movements. All he lacks is a cat - for obvious reasons!

8/10

Great - Silver Award

For any age, Disney's diversity movie, Zootropolis, is the perfect entertainment for the Easter holiday. True, it doesn't have the thought-provoking qualities of Inside Out, but it's beautifully made, full of great characters, smart, witty and simply delightful… and if there was ever a film designed to improve the popularity of sloths, this has to be it.