Since the birth of “children’s films”, parents have unwillingly taken their hyperactive children to see plushy appropriate films, only to be one step away from pulling their hair out. But with Disney’s new film, Zootopia comes out with guns blazing, not shying away from taking shots at certain subjects. This film takes on serious subject matter, with child humor, inspired by crime dramas such as The Godfather and Chinatown.
Our heroine is Judy Hops, voiced by Ginnifer Goodwin. A girl, who from a young age, imagined being a police officer. However, it was her parents and 225 siblings that seemed to deem her dream just that. A dream. But Judy set her goals, and demanded that she “never knew when to quit”. Her parents don’t succeed at extinguishing the fire inside of Judy, and she becomes a cop of Zootopia, a beautiful city where all animals now live in harmony. But although she becomes the first bunny to ever become cop, she is faced with difficulties as she tries to break through the glass ceiling set up by her boss, Police Chief Bogo (voiced by the one of a kind Idris Elba).
But it is when different animals around Zootopia begin to go missing, that Judy gets her big break! Judy gets nowhere with her investigation until she teams up with sly Nick Wilde (who is my personal favorite), voiced by the hilarious Jason Bateman. When Judy and Nick find out that animals are being turned back into having vicious tendencies, they find themselves going further down the rabbit hole, which they find that the serious problem has been funneling all the way down from the government. Like I said, Zootopia holds nothing back.
This film hits so many social topics on point, without blatantly saying what the real social problem is. It hits on racism, prejudices of many kinds, the use of certain words, drugs, crimes, and more. As a parent, or even just as an adult, you may understand the topics at hand. However, for a child that is only interested in the colors, story, and characters, they probably won’t pay any attention, or even understand the adult content. Zootopia is going to be a film that will go down in the history books. A landmark film, that no matter the genre, touched on subjects that people face today.
Zootopia
Directed By: Byron Howard, Rich Moore, and Jared Bush
Starring: Ginnifer Goodwin, Jason Bateman, Idris Elba, and J.K Simmons
Rating: A
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