Film review: ‘Zootopia 2’ by Nick Gardener from ‘Built For Speed’
Zootopia from 2016 was one of the cleverer, wittier and more charming animated films of the last decade. Set in a world entirely populated by talking animals who managed to live together without eating each other, it mixed family friendly crime caper adventure with dash of political corruption and had us cheering for its two likeable heroes, intrepid rabbit junior cop Judy (Ginnifer Goodwin) and the streetwise trickster fox Nick (Jason Bateman).
Now, after nine years, comes the sequel which sees more zany action and dark secrets emerge in a Chinatown-like tale of political deceit. After taking down the evil sheep, Dawn Bellwether (Jenny Slate), Judy and Nick are heroes in Zootopia and Nick has even joined the police force. Their adulation is short lived, though, as a bust gone wrong sees them blamed for destroying half the city. Thinking they can redeem themselves by tracking down a snake who seems to be connected to recent crimes, Judy and Nick find themselves battling a rich and powerful family’s nefarious scheme to oppress the city’s excluded reptile population and to hide a vital part of Zootopia’s history.
Like the first film, this one relies heavily on high energy action scenes in which Judy and Nick narrowly escape death. The sight gags are exciting as far as animated films go and thankfully, not so manic as to become incoherent as often occurs in these types of movies.
While it’s hardly laugh out loud material for adults, most of the gags are at least fun as they indulge stereotypical animal behaviours such as elephants cowering from mice and cats, even if they’re highly articulate, being unable to stop themselves playing with a cat toy. There are also various film parodies which are amusing for cinephiles but we could probably retire the Hannibal Lecter behind the Perspex prison wall gag which gets another run here.
While the action, comedy and often startlingly realistic and detailed animation are important to the film’s appeal, it wouldn’t work if the voice actors didn’t nail their roles; thankfully they’re great. Ginnifer Goodwin makes Judy a lovable and feisty heroin while Jason Bateman brings his typically droll sense of humour to the character of Nick. There are also great contributions from Idris Elba as the requisite grumpy police sergeant (in this case a hulking water buffalo), Ke Huy Quan as the mysterious viper Gary de Snake, Fortune Feimster as conspiracy theory podcaster named (believe it not) Nibbles the Beaver and Patrick Warburton as the vain Mayor of Zootopia, the muscly long-haired stallion, Brian Winddancer.
Zootopia 2 doesn’t offer a lot that we didn’t see in the first film but there’s enough colourful action and quirky behaviour to delight the youngsters and clever gags to please the adults making this one of the better family film offerings around at the moment.
Nick’s rating: ***1/2
Genre: Drama/ Action/ Adventure/ Animation.
Classification: PG.
Director(s): Jared Bush & Byron Howard.
Release date: 27th Nov 2025.
Running time: 108 mins.
Reviewer: Nick Gardener can be heard on “Built For Speed” every Friday night from 8-10pm on 88.3 Southern FM.
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