It’s been a long nine years since Disney’s Zootopia was released to near universal praise and more than a billion dollars at the box office. In my review of the film, I said, “Zootopia is an important movie for parents, kids, and anyone who appreciates animated films. Asking people to be less prejudiced and more open-minded isn’t just something that kids should be learning, but a message for the entire world.” Rewatching it in advance of the long-awaited release of the sequel, not only does it still hold up, but its anti-racist messages are more important and timely than ever.
I think Zootopia is probably the best Disney film of the last 15 years, so could a sequel released in 2025 live up to that pedigree and have just as strong of a message as the original? The short answer is no, but that doesn’t make Zootopia 2 a bad movie by any stretch, just a more conventional animated adventure that prefers chases and animal puns over telling a story with much nuance and depth.
Zootopia 2 picks up a week or so after the original and sees the earnest and resolute anthropomorphic rabbit Judy Hopps (voiced by the wonderful Ginnifer Goodwin, doing most of the emotional heavy lifting) and sly fox Nick Wilde (the effortlessly charismatic Jason Bateman) are officially partners at the Zootopia Police Department. When they get pulled into a case involving a sweet and goofy pit viper (a delightful Ke Huy Quan), a nasty family of billionaire lynxes and a lost part of the city not seen for decades, Nick and Judy will once again be faced with their own prejudices, fears, and the machinations of a city that would prefer they fail… but mostly, yeah, it’s chases and animal puns.
And that’s fine. While that might be disappointing for grown-ups like myself watching the movie alone with a giant Coke and ill-fitting 3D glasses, the kids I heard in the audience were rolling with laughter and having the time of their lives. Zootopia 2 still has a dash of thematic depth, this time mostly focused around gentrification, fear of the other, and the cold calculations of the obscenely rich, but none of it has the same emotional heft as the original.
In a way, this one feels more like an episode of a Zootopia TV show than a new theatrical adventure. Maybe I’m getting harder to please as I get older, but I found the animation to be more generic and less enveloping than it was a decade ago. When Nick and Judy are chased through the lush and gorgeously animated Rainforest District in the original, I found it breathless and transporting. While the new locations in the sequel are diverting and colorful (including a parody of Burning Man called “Burning Mammal” and a massive, snowy hedge maze à la The Shining), but even in 3D, I never found myself transported to the pretty, pixelated metropolis that the brilliant team of animators has meticulously built.
Still, with a central mystery paying homage to classic noir like Chinatown and The Third Man, and a script that genuinely loves Nick and Judy and wants us to see them as three-dimensional animal cops, nothing about Zootopia 2 feels phoned in, either. This isn’t a cynical cash grab from Disney (if it was, it would have been shoveled into theaters years ago), even if it fails to capture the same ephemeral magic of the original.
Regardless, it’s likely to be another billion-dollar smash for Disney and probably spawn several more movies, a Disney+ show, and maybe a video game or two. As predictable as that might be, I’m OK with it. I’m excited to see Judy, Nick, Flash the Sloth, Chief Bogo the Water Buffalo, Benjamin Clawhauser the chonky cheetah, etc., go on more adventures that teach kids acceptance, love, and other important things. As long as these adorably anthropomorphized animals keep having something of value to say, I’ll be there. Your kids and their kids should be, too.
Zootopia 2
Grade: B
