Movie Re­view: Zootopia

MISHAWAKA- Dis­ney has played a ma­jor fac­tor in the de­vel­op­ment of most of our lives; it has in­spired princesses to be­come the war­riors and in­formed princes that there is more than just beauty. Dis­ney has taught chil­dren for decades the im­por­tance of lov­ing one an­other and be­ing kind; the movie Zootopia has led by ex­am­ple what it means to in­clu­sive, kind and ac­cept­ing.  

The city of Zootopia is the city of pos­si­bil­i­ties, where every type of mam­mal can be who they de­sire to be. Of­fi­cer Judy Hopps, voiced by ac­tress Gin­nifer Good­win, heads to the city to be the first rab­bit cop.  

Of­fi­cer Hopps faces dis­crim­i­nat­ing ob­sta­cles be­cause of the stereo­types fol­low­ing rab­bits but is de­ter­mined to show her boss and the other of­fi­cers she is the best of­fi­cer no mat­ter where she is as­signed.  

Later in the film, Of­fi­cer Hopps part­ners with her bi­o­log­i­cal en­emy, a fox named Nick Wilde, voiced by Ja­son Bate­man, and jumps at the op­por­tu­nity to solve an on­go­ing mys­te­ri­ous case where mam­mals are go­ing miss­ing through­out the city.  

Dis­ney did a fan­tas­tic job of mak­ing their au­di­ence an­gry at the dis­crim­i­na­tion and stereo­types that are pre­sent through­out the film; Zootopia re­flects some­thing that is quite pre­sent in our so­ci­ety to­day, and Dis­ney brings up the prob­lems with­out push­ing it down our throats.  

Of­fi­cer Hopps and Nick Wilde, though bi­o­log­i­cally des­tined to hate each other, over­come the stereo­types of be­ing a rab­bit or a fox and re­al­ize af­ter many events that they all are the same on the in­side and all have the pos­si­bil­ity to go “sav­age” or “crazy.” 

The plot teaches au­di­ences to not hate on oth­ers just be­cause of what’s on the out­side, and even the peo­ple who look like us can be­tray the clos­est com­pan­ion­ship. 

SPOILER WARN­ING: At the end of the film, Of­fi­cer Judy Hopps and Nick Wilde work to­gether to solve the case haunt­ing the city and over­come more than what their his­tory says they should do. They over­come the dif­fer­ences and cel­e­brate the sim­i­lar­i­ties they share.  

Of­fi­cer Hopps gives an in­spir­ing speech as the movie con­cludes and leaves the mam­mals in the film with some­thing in­spir­ing, but also teaches and leaves hu­mans with some of the best ad­vice yet.  

“Real life… is messy,” Hopps said. “We all have lim­i­ta­tions. We all make mis­takes. Which means, hey, glass half full, we all have a lot in com­mon. And the more we try to un­der­stand one an­other, the more ex­cep­tional each of us will be. But we have to try. So, no mat­ter what type of an­i­mal you are, from the biggest ele­phant to our first fox. I im­plore you… try. Try and make the world a bet­ter place.” 

No mat­ter where we come from, we all must try and make our world a bet­ter place.  

Thank you, Zootopia.