A Movie Review: Zootopia

Zootopia. This is one fun movie -- though I do have one minor complaint that I will address below. As a child, Judy Hopps wants to become the first rabbit officer. No one believes she can do it. The town bully mocks her. Her parents suggest making another career choice. She ignores them all and when she is old enough she attends the police academy. After a rough start, she quickly finds her way to the top of the class. After graduating, she gets a dream assignment in the city of Zootopia; however, the chief of the police department, Chief Bogo, puts her on parking enforcement. She decides to make the most of it and starts giving out parking tickets left and right.

She soon runs into a couple low level, semi crooked individuals. One is a fox named Nick Wilde. She volunteers to track down a missing otter, which causes some political issues. Chief Bogo is unhappy with her for going above his head; however, Assistant Mayor Bellwether is pleased. She is given the case, but Chief Bogo demands that she wrap up the case in 48 hours and if she isn't able to do so she must hand in her resignation. Clues to the case are limited, but the one clue leads to Nick Wilde. She gets him on board and off they go searching for the missing otter.

I found this to be a really great story about perseverance in pursuing a dream -- even if it seems impossible. There is also the story of redemption, that even someone who no longer has a dream can find a dream later in life.

Beyond the themes of the movie, the story itself is just wonderfully done. It is a semi-complex movie; however, it is easy to follow. And though the villein of the movie becomes obvious about midway through, it doesn't distract from anything.

My one minor complaint: why do they have Judy Hopps being so overly-aggressive with handing out parking tickets? People like that are hated in Los Angeles. Maybe this is just a perspective of an adult versus that of a child.