New Film Review: Zootopia

ZOOTOPIA
Directed by Byron Howard; Rich Moore; and Jared Bush
Screenplay by Jared Bush and Phil Johnston
Starring Ginnifer Goodwin; Jason Bateman; Idris Elba; and JK Simmons



In a society of animals, a fugitive con artist fox (Jason Bateman) and a rookie and first of its kind police bunny (Ginnifer Goodwin) try to solve a conspiracy.

Well. We are into March and we have the best film of the year so far.
Like Inside Out from last year, this film takes real life issues and puts them into an animated film so all can understand the point. So timely. Zootopia touches on racism. Bullying. Keeping an open mind. Chasing dreams no matter what is said to try to hold you down. The key is it does not preach it, it does a nice job of giving gentle pieces of the problems and then showing how to deal with the issues. In a society run by big strong animals, a little bunny with a lot of determination can make a difference. With all that is mentioned about the film touching on timely subjects somehow the screenwriters make the film fun!!
Zootopia does a lot right:
Well I just covered a real good script. Yes it has lessons, but there is an interesting criminal investigation in this story also which keeps you interested. At that point it becomes a prettygood buddy cop film.
Ginnifer Goodwin as Judy Hopps and Jason Bateman as Nick Wilde are awesome.
Humor...Most notable the slugs, who are going to be stars like Sadness in Inside Out, and Yax played by Tommy Chong!! The naturalist had me laughing out loud. So did the mob/Godfather reference.

I will stop there because no spoilers, but I do have a couple of negatives:
It seemed a bit long at 108 minutes, it seemed to have too many endings.
The PG is a hard PG. I wish it was not but it is. It can be a bit scary in some parts for little ones.

4 1/2 stars out of 5 for this gem. How can we have our first Oscar contender in March!!!

From the shadows as always thanks for your time.