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'Zootopia': It's a Jungle out There
By Michael S. Goldberger, iBerkshires Film Critic
03:42PM / Friday, March 11, 2016
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With "Zootopia," a gaggle of doubtlessly well-intentioned writers and directors fail to snare the brass ring of kiddie-flick making, the award accorded to those movies that prove entertaining to children and adults alike.

Granted, it's a beautifully animated, satiric parable ostensibly meant to be Brittany and Tyler's introduction to civics. But while intelligent, responsible and hyperpacked with political correctness, the satisfaction it engenders in Grandma won't necessarily be matched by the joyful enchantment we'd hope to see on Junior's face.

Nope. By the time today's hip kid hits the Bijou he is pretty aware of what ails and threatens civilization, from racial inequality and gender discrimination to poverty and the opportunistic politicians who feed on our fears. Hence, when Judy Hopps, a young rabbit with dreams of being a police officer in the big title city, comes face to face with the bigotry that would dash her dreams, your tyke won't necessarily admire how the filmmaker has woven this message into the story. He learned that in school, and hopefully at home. Now he wants to eat candy and laugh.

Instead, the young audience I saw "Zootopia" with politely sympathized with the bright-eyed and literally bushytailed protagonist, anxious for her happiness, but leaving the more subtle double entendres, plays on words and elusive allusions for the accompanying oldsters to appreciate. Welcome exceptions to this unintentional dichotomy in appeal occur thanks to some splendid visual effects, heightened, but only a bit, by the optional, extra cost 3-D. The train ride Judy takes from rural Bunnyburrow to her much anticipated great expectations is delightful.

Otherwise, expect all the usual stereotypes, lighter examples more or less of the creatures that made Orwell's "Animal Farm" such a distinguished metaphor for human behavior. Act 1, Scene 1, Judy, voiced by Ginnifer Goodwin, is mercilessly pummeled by oafish Gideon Grey (Phil Johnston), the bully we know is destined to become a nothing. This is his shining hour, and he knows it. Not all self-centered bullies get to be our leaders. In any case, his cruelty is part of the reason Judy decides to dedicate herself to truth, justice and the animal way.

These are, after all, progressive times following the big enlightenment. We learn that once upon a time the animal kingdom was divided into predators and prey. But now, the proverbial lion lies at peace with the lamb, or at least that's how the law has been written. But as the story develops and we follow Judy through her trials and tribulations, it appears society hasn't yet navigated its way through the reconstruction period. Prejudice abounds.

Though Judy fully earns her way on to the Zootopia police force, she is accorded token status: "humph, a prey, and a woman at that."

Thus, when assigned parking duty at her first day's mustering, she is understandably miffed.

Huh? She wanted to catch crooks. But when she complains to Police Chief Bongo (Idris Elba), a gruff water buffalo hardly concerned about hiding his chauvinism, he condescendingly tells her to prove her worth by writing 100 tickets before noon. Of course this is only one more opportunity for undeterred, undaunted and perennially idealistic Judy Hopps to prove why she's advanced to where she has. She issues a record number of parking summonses. But the bonus comes when, in the course of her duties, she can't help but spot some rather suspicious activity.

Enters stage left Nick Wilde, your traditional sly fox with an ice pop recycling scam, vocalized by Jason Bateman. A tad larcenous and amusingly street smart, on first blush he is our intrepid gal's antithesis. However, among the many life lessons Hopps learns in her trial by fire is the resistance to profile one's fellow animal. Getting to know each other and finding they share common enemies in society's hypocrisy and intolerance, the fox and the rabbit agree they smell a rat. To quote Rick in "Casablanca" (1942), "this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."

Here, even that child of yours whose scholarship you've smugly advertised on your bumper sticker might get a little lost in the details. Working to right all the wrongs in "Zootopia," the symbiotic duo valorously ferrets through a web of deceit and corruption almost as intricate as the immorality Jack Nicholson's Jake Gittes uncovers in "Chinatown" (1974). So, it's totally within the realm of possibility that, when your $119,000-a-year investment takes a film class in American crime drama at Berkeley about 12 years hence, he'll muse, "Oh, I remember this plot."

More importantly, said future collegian may have benefitted from the film's panoply of ethical instruction, dutifully delivered in conveyor belt fashion. No moral maxim goes unturned. All of which makes us wish that the current menagerie of presidential candidates, especially those on the bad side of the aisle, would take a lesson or two from the theoretically lesser animals in "Zootopia."  

"Zootopia," rated PG, is a Walt Disney Studios release directed by Byron Howard, Rich Moore and Jared Bush and stars the voices of Ginnifer Goodwin, Jason Bateman and Idris Alba. Running time: 108 minutes

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