Zootropolis (Howard, Moore & Bush, 2016)

What's it about? Plucky rabbit Judy (voiced by Ginnifer Goodwin) becomes a cop in the animal-populated city of Zootropolis. To prove her worth, she must team up with sly fox Nick Wilde (voiced by Jason Bateman) to investigate a spate of missing person....er......missing animal cases.


Is it any good? A fun mix of animal animation, social commentary and crime story. As you might expect the animation is glorious, with several sight gags and inventive action sequences. The story offers up a spin on the classic LA detective story, albeit with a cast of animals instead - not so much neo-noir as eco-noir, eh? Amirite?! And there's a moral message about the dangers of stereotyping, racism and xenophobia, which is slightly muddled in what it's trying to say, but at least it's trying to say something, goddammit. At least it's doing that. Ultimately, it's not quite the stuff that dreams are made of, but it's got Idris Elba as a water-buffalo and that's alright by me, baby.

I don't trust you. What do others think? At the time of writing , it's one of the most successful films ever made, breaking the $1billion dollar threshold to break into the Top 25, not a bad showing for a film with no in-built guaranteed audience. Rather amusingly, given the genre it apes, it also goes under the alias of Zootopia, presumably because it's got a deep, dark secret it's trying to run away from.

What does the Fonz think? Can I call it an animated film noir? Or is that being racist?






Buy it on Amazon

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