(SOME VAGUE SPOILERS AHEAD)
After watching Zootopia 1 week ago, I checked Rotten Tomato to see if the score the movie has dropped from 100% yet. It hasn't. And IMDB reports a surprising score at 8.1 – that is VERY high for IMDB.
Having seen the movie before most other people, I am genuinely surprised by this.
Zootopia is not a bad movie. I am not saying people should be more negative toward this film – but a score this high? I am genuinely, genuinely surprised!
So, what is this movie about? A rabbit. An innocent wide-eyed female rabbit who had dreamt of becoming a police officer, and did become a police officer through her hard work. She moves to Zootopia – a land where animals live together in harmony despite their differences in size or positions in the food chain. She meets a sly fox. They have to team up to solve a case. There's comedy. There's drama. There's action. There's buddy cop. There's racial commentary. There's everything in this movie. All of which were done sufficiently well... but why couldn't they just focus on one of those and make it extraordinarily well?
In my opinion, this movie has way too much to offer. It's a jack of all trade. But the thing with Jack-of-all-trades is that they don't end up fully succeeding in a single thing. They however will be partially succeeding in numeral aspects.
Let's go step by step, and speak first about the things that got me in this movie.
Well, the characters are pretty good. I like the rabbit played by Ginnifer Goodwin, and I really like the fox played by Jason Bateman. Their voices add a lot to the movie – especially with the fox. The intonation sound very human, when he's joking, you can here the snickering and the slight changes in his voice. This does not usually happen in animated film. A lot of the voice works even in some of Pixar's most successful films don't feel as genuine as the voice works in this one.
The animations are equally fantastic. The colors are starkly vivid. Zootopia is vibrant and beautiful. The movie centers on the city and its various locations. Every scenery of the city jumps out at you. They are brilliantly designed and beautifully animated to the last detail. The animations on the animals are also detailed. They give a lot of care into creating textures of skins, furs, whiskers, teeth and claws. I have not seen a better-animated film in a long time.
These 2 aspects combined with some interesting writings make the 2 main characters stand out, although they don't seem to be quite as iconic or memorable as the other quintessential Disney characters. I guess the back-stories are not quite as compelling? No. That's not it. The fox has an interesting enough back story. The rabbit's back story has a lot of meat to it, and is fleshed out quite well in the movie. You see her when she's a kid then you see how she's grown up... and change over time. There are time lapses but you remain for the most part tied to the story. So it's not the lack of plot or character development. The movie is very competent in that. The direction is great too. So what's the problem?
The one big issue I have with the movie is that... it's jampacked with stories and characters that the film has to rush through.
The movie has so many things to give to us; so many different characters that there is no way you can fit all of them into a single movie without compromising a thing or two. Hell, they compromised the entire experience for me. Just when I was getting into the story of a naïve female cop from the countryside fighting discrimination in the big urban area, it became a buddy cop story, then all of a sudden the movie became a mystery.
The mystery is only mildly interesting but even then the movie has been unpredictable enough for me to wonder where it all might lead. And then a conspiracy is unveiled – which isn't that far from a mystery (most mystery films usually ended involving a huge conspiracy). But then! The movie took another detour! Which I will not directly spoil... but it involves the idea of racial discrimination. This was when my interest peaks. I was amazed at how suddenly mature the movie became for me. It was starting to feel like an allegory.
My thought was... why did we not start with this in the first place.
Even after this specific storyline, the movie has a cliché separation moment. A quick moment of realization for the main character. And a finale that frankly feels rather rush... with a villain that when revealed, feels out-of-place... a cool yet strange twist that I don't know what to make of.
I am very much convinced that if the entire film is more focused, I might just love it.
As I already stated, the animations and voice works are A-grades. The city Zootopia is the star of Zootopia. This is one of the most interesting setting/ locations Disney has ever produced. The characters are good. They could've all benefited from more attentions and screen times. The fox for example has a backstory that feels once again, very out-of-place and shoehorned it. There is a head officer played by Idris Elba who jumps back and forth between being a stupid bully and a funny and interesting character. The movie tries to present them well. But these elements and characters compete for spotlights.
Zootopia would've been a cool TV show. Not in a way that it's not a good enough to be a movie. But in a way that there would've been enough time to go through all these characters and plot points. And the anchor of the entire thing would still remain the two main characters and the city.
When compressed into a movie, Zootopia feels over-bloated. A potentially great narrative spoiled by lack of concentration.
I walked out of Zootopia feeling like I've seen a great movie but have yet to experience it.
It still is a pretty amazing experience though for the animation and the mature storylines at least; see it instead of Zoolander 2 and Gods of Egypt, which I think think are god awful and hilariously awful... respectively.
Zootopia gets a 7/10.
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This review is dedicated to one of the writers we have been a fan of: RidingLife. Especially her book 'Love Is...', you guys should definitely check it out!
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