'Zootopia': Disney animated tale with a touch of allegory and female empowerment

It's too bad the target audience for Disney's Zootopia isn't of voting age - not even close - because there are issues here, about exclusion, prejudice, xenophobia, and women's rights, that would fire up an electorate and make voters look twice at the candidates vying for the presidency.

Not that Zootopia is Animal Farm, or anything like that. A good ol' computer-animated Disney entertainment starring a feisty, saucer-eyed rabbit by the name of Judy Hopps (the voice of Ginnifer Goodwin), Zootopia is set in the seemingly idyllic titular town, a place, the welcome sign proclaims, "where anyone can be anything" and where all the different mammals get along.

Judy is putting that slogan to the test: The diminutive bunny is a Police Academy cadet eager to prove her mettle. But there has never been a rabbit cop before, and the higher-ups (literally quite a few feet higher) don't think she's cut out for the job.

Chief Bogo, a towering buffalo (Idris Elba, soon to be heard in another Disney family adventure, The Jungle Book), assigns the new graduate to the parking beat.

Judy proves to be more zealous than even the most aggressive Philadelphia Parking Authority ticketeer. But on her second day on the job, Judy goes chasing after a real criminal, and then gets caught up in a missing-otter case (no, nowhere in the screenplay does anyone say "there otter be a law").

Bogo isn't pleased - he's ready to fire Judy for insubordination. But the deputy mayor, a mild-mannered ewe (Jenny Slate), comes to Judy's support, and the chief reluctantly gives Officer Hopps 48 hours to solve the case. She's off and, er, hopping.

(Aside: What is it about rabbits that makes them such endearing, enduring figures? Crusader Rabbit, Roger Rabbit, Bugs Bunny, Br'er Rabbit, Bunnicula, Peter Rabbit, the whole worried warren of Watership Down, playwrights David Hare and James Lapine - it's quite a list.)

Apart from its anthropomorphic, allegorical angle, Zootopia is also a tale of female empowerment and a classic noir, too. Judy's missing-mammal case proves to be a serial affair, labyrinthine and treacherous, with a Godfather-esque mobster (a teeny shrew) and a sinister, power-grabbing conspiracy.

Judy teams up with a wily fox (Jason Bateman), the two of them digging deeper into the mystery, which leads to dark, scary places. (Hence, the PG rating - sensitive tykes might get freaked out by the snarling animals and shadowy confrontations.)

Zootopia the town prides itself on its harmonious lifestyle - predators and prey alike walking the streets, sharing the buses, waiting in line at the DMV. (The Motor Vehicles clerks are all sloths, moving with the speed of, well, sloths - it's one of the film's funnier gags.)

Zootopia

the movie shows how tenuous that kind of harmony can be, and how easily fear can be exploited, creating a chasm of suspicion and doubt and menace among people.

Among animals, that is. People are way smarter than to let fearmongering get in the way of their better selves. Right?

srea@phillynews.com
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