Zootopia was a film that came out of the left field for me. It wasn’t on my radar at all. Both my wife and myself were pretty big fans of the last two Kung Fu Panda films so we’d been looking forward to watching it. Unfortunately that one seems to have gotten only middling reviews but while looking at showtimes I couldn’t help but notice that this Disney release just happened to be in cinemas at around the same time but got stellar reviews. In fact even my cinephile friend and the members over on Broken Forum gave it a thumbs-up, making this a must watch for my wife.

In a world populated solely by anthropomorphic animals and no humans, Judy Hopps dreams of becoming a police officers in the city of Zootopia. Since she’s just a tiny bunny, everyone either mocks her or feels worried about her decision as most police officers are huge animals like oxen or scary predators. But as such films go, she manages to make it work and is soon thrown into an investigation involving predator animals mysteriously going feral. With the police chief being one of the skeptics, she partners up with a fox who is naturally a con artist and saves the day, proving that everyone can be whoever they want to be.

The story beats tread familiar and safe territory. Its moralizing message even comes dangerously close to being annoying. Fortunately the execution is performed so perfectly that it never crosses the line. As obvious as its messaging is, it remains relevant as ever, perhaps even more relevant this year than in most other years due to the rise of Donald Trump, which therefore makes it worthwhile. Character designs and dialogue are both excellent and I’m pleased to note that this film, unlike so many other animated films, does do some worldbuilding. I was entertained by how the city is separated into different sections to reflect the vast differences in the physical sizes of different types of animals. Still, it once again fails to address the all important question: what the heck do the presumably still carnivorous predators eat?

A few months back we enjoyed watching both seasons that are out so far of Bojack Horseman, an animated series that also uses anthropomorphic animals to tell stories that are really about humans. It occurs to me that both shows use animals for much the same reason: moralizing lessons that would be uncomfortable or even beyond the pale become much more palatable if you swap in animals instead. Imagine how awkward this story would be if Judy Hopps were a white girl and Nick Wilde the fox were a black man. The correspondences never have to be exact of course and that too is another benefit of using animals. To some extent, it frees us of preconceptions and invites us to look at the same story with fresh, unbiased eyes. This is one of the main reasons why Zootopia works as well as it does.

In the end however, this is still an animated film that needs to appeal to kids so there’s only so far that it can go. Given these constraints, it’s about as a good an animated film as you can expect from a major Hollywood studio so I’d still recommend it highly.