‘Zootopia 2’ Reminds Us What Disney Animation Looks Like When Handled with Care

Disney Animation has entered a fallow period, a product of the larger studio being directionless in the face of fighting a streaming war that demands quantity rather than quality. After a resurgence in the 2010s, the last three years have witnessed some of Walt Disney Studio Animation’s weakest efforts from the forgettable Strange World, the confused and misguided centennial celebration of Wish, and the hastily slapped together Moana 2 (a box office hit with none of the original’s magic), the studio’s new movie, Zootopia 2, is a welcome reprieve even if it isn’t a stone-cold classic. The whole picture bursts with life, emotion, and thoughtfulness, and despite a few false notes, it at least plays like a movie that was made with care rather than a quickie sequel to appease shareholders. When the film wraps, you hope it won’t be another nine years to see the next adventure of Judy Hopps and Nick Wilde.

Picking up right after the events of the first movie, Judy (Ginnifer Goodwin) and Nick (Jason Bateman) are now a team working for the Zootopia Police Department, but no one takes them seriously. Their massive success in exposing a conspiracy at City Hall in the first movie was seen as a fluke, and so Judy wants to prove to everyone that she and Nick are the real deal, while Nick, as is his wont, is content to go along to get along. These differing goals start being put to the test when Judy discovers there might be a snake (Ke Huy Quan) in Zootopia for the first time in decades, and he wants the Lynxley Journal, a valuable artifact about the country’s founding and how the late, revered Ebenezer Lynxley invented different biomes for the various species. Judy and Nick’s investigation could uncover a new conspiracy, but also dissolve their friendship.

Just as the first film wasn’t shy about how well-meaning people can still carry inherent biases, and that it takes real work to overcome those prejudices, Zootopia 2 is a movie that’s eager to use political commentary for its plot. This time around, the film explores gentrification, how the powerful rewrite history for their own ends, and how social justice and historical accuracy are intertwined. But like the first movie, it’s also okay if all this flies over the heads of younger viewers, who will still enjoy the antics of the colorful characters. For adults, we can enjoy jokes like the city’s new mayor being a dim-witted entertainer who acquiesces to the demands of the wealthy (Patrick Warburton in a welcome return to voice acting for a Disney movie). Kids will laugh that it’s a horse that starred in action movies.

Also, like the first film, directors Jared Bush and Byron Howard cram in the jokes and references to where a single viewing won’t be enough to capture all the puns, sight gags, and overall color of Zootopia. The directors took the success of the first movie, as well as their follow-up Encanto, to go even wilder and stranger in some of the humor. I won’t spoil any of the jokes, but I will say I was surprised at how unique and offbeat the movie could get at points, reminding me a bit of Gore Verbinski’s Rango.

Beyond the politics and the humor, Zootopia 2 is also thoughtful about what it means to be empathetic, and what happens when personalized empathy conflicts with generalized empathy. Wisely, neither Judy nor Nick is “wrong” in this movie, but Judy’s drive for justice is a macro-empathy rooted in an abstract concept, which causes her to look past how her motivations can run roughshod over Nick’s desires. Conversely, the laid-back Nick isn’t so concerned with justice as much as he cares solely about Judy, and even his new profession as a cop is more about his desire to protect his friend rather than larger society. These differing attitudes help keep the buddy-cop dynamic feeling fresh rather than trying to reset the characters’ beliefs to repeat the dynamic of the first film.

These great strengths make the film's few flaws a bit more noticeable. The introduction of a conspiracy theorist character, Nibbles Maplestick (Fortune Feimster), who helps Nick and Judy because she cares so much about the truth, feels particularly odious given how YouTube (or, in the film’s pun-filled world, “EweTube”) drives people down some of the Internet’s darker rabbit holes and children are particularly vulnerable to this kind of misinformation. The film also has a bit of a tough time following through on its political observations, although it’s probably unfair of me to ask a Disney movie to fully embrace the idea of what happens if the police serve at the behest of the powerful rather than the marginalized. 

And yet overall, Zootopia 2 is a welcome return, not just to the world of these characters, but to what we know Disney Animation can do when they have the right filmmakers at the helm. The talent is still at the studio, but as they start to face serious competition from DreamWorks Animation and Sony Pictures Animation, they won’t always be able to trust that sequels are enough. Perhaps Moana 2 told them that quality can be an afterthought to branding, and certainly the upcoming Frozen sequels attest to a company that would prefer to use a franchise model. To be fair, Zootopia 2 shows you can make sequels and have something worthwhile to say. But until the studio can find its footing again, Zootopia 2 threatens to be the exception rather than the rule.

Zootopia 2 is now playing in theaters.