I went to my favorite movie emporium, the Spectrum 8, to catch a late Thursday matinee of the film Zootopia 2. I had enjoyed the first film back in 2016.
Was the success of the partnership of rabbit Judy Hopps (Ginnifer Goodwin) and fox Nick Wilde (Jason Bateman) the start of great things? Or was their previous case a one-off fluke? The police hierarchy, beginning with Chief Bogo (Idris Elba), begins to believe it is the latter and sends them to therapy.
On their own, they pursue the mysterious Gary De’Snake (Ke Huy Quan). Even in the utopia that is Zootopia, reptiles are relegated to the edges of town. Was the city’s history manipulated? Will the new mayor, a horse named Winddancer (Patrick Warburton), do the right thing? I ended up being totally sucked into the narrative, trying to figure out the good guys – other than our heroes – from the villains.
At the same time, I caught clever references to other movies, especially animal films like Ratatouille and Babe.
The film received 92% positive reviews from critics. My favorite line was from Rua Fay: “a film sure to impress your five-year-old sibling as well as your annoying socialist teenage cousin.” This is almost certainly true.
Big box office
And the film is incredibly successful. Variety notes, “Zootopia 2 is only the third movie this year to join the $1 billion club after Disney’s Lilo & Stitch ($1.03 billion), and China’s animated blockbuster Ne Zha 2 (the highest-grossing release of 2025 with $1.9 billion). Only 13 animated films (10 of which are Disney titles) have ever surpassed $1 billion.” And it did well in China.
So I think it’s mildly funny that I saw the film all by myself, which isn’t ideal for me, but c’est la vie.
Reviewer Shalini Langer: “The ‘lessons’ at the heart of this film are perhaps too on the nose. But that is not necessarily bad for a film that is meant for children, whose central message is embracing difference,…and at a time when adults need to relearn that too.” On the nose? Maybe a bit, though it didn’t bother me. Need to be relearned? Absolutely.
