In Zootopia, Disney Animation posed the hypothetical question of whether sufficiently advanced mammals of various shapes, sizes, and appetites might be able to coexist semi-peacefully and mostly clothed in a sprawling, multi-environment urban municipality. Zootopia 2, in theaters Nov. 26, zeroes in on the more character-specific question that emerged from all that hustle and bustle: Could the bunny maybe kiss the fox?
That’s not the actual plot of the sequel to the 2016 blockbuster. (Moana may have stolen more hearts, but Zootopia made $300 million more worldwide, including in the many countries where it’s called the less punnily aspirational but perhaps more realistic Zootropolis.)
Technically, this movie is about diminutive, adorable Judy Hopps (Ginnifer Goodwin), who became the “first bunny cop” in the earlier film, formally teaming up with her newly hired fellow officer Nick Wilde (Jason Bateman), the sarcastic and equally adorable fox she met on her first big case, to crack another mystery.
This one involves the arrival of a snake (Ke Huy Quan), a species unseen in the mammal-only Zootopia for a century, and his pursuit of an old journal by a legendary figure in the city’s history.
Judy’s view of policework remains awfully lofty. But if we can allow the notion that predator/prey relationships have mended over the years, let’s also presume that becoming a cop means something markedly less thorny and systematically prejudiced than in the real world. The real non-literal elephant in the room that Zootopia 2 actually avoids talking about is the full extent of Nick and Judy’s feelings for each other.
They banter, stick together, argue, and express undying dedication. At one point early in the film, they jump the gun on a sting operation by dressing up as a married couple, pushing a baby in a stroller, turning heads with seeming evidence of an interspecies affair. Like so many old X-Files episodes centering Mulder and Scully, it feels like the beginning of a beautiful and/or alarming fanfic.
Jared Bush and Byron Howard, the principal filmmakers behind Zootopia 2, must know this. We know they must. And they must know that we know that they know. And so on. Maybe the movie deserves credit for giving the animals pants and keeping them buttoned. What it probably wants credit for is a mutually caring and intense platonic relationship between two characters of opposite genders who have never actually disclosed their sexualities. The filmmakers are happy to wink at the idea of a romance while firmly insisting that there’s no funny business afoot.
That’s fine! It’s fine. But questions about the Judy/Nick relationship are fodder for the wandering grown-up mind during Zootopia 2, because these two characters and their hang-ups are the most consistently engaging elements of the movie—even if Bush and Howard tend to couch their characterizations in cutesy therapy-speak. (Reverse that cliché about all the things men would rather do than go to therapy: Mainstream filmmakers would rather ruin their dialogue than not go to therapy.) In a cartoon, actions speak louder anyway, and the character animation on Judy in particular is a marvel of nervous twitches, manic crime-stopping lunges, and expressing feelings through ear movements.
Also, at one point, the bunny and the fox dress up fancy to infiltrate a gala, and they look fabulous. I’m sorry. I’m just reporting facts here.
Zootopia 2 isn’t entirely the Nick and Judy show. It features occasional onslaughts of wonderful sight gags, especially when the mystery leads our heroes to the Marsh Market, a less policed outskirts where more water-loving creatures hang out; the reptile bar is a highlight. It’s also great fun to see Disney animators play around with a zig-zagging snake again, this time making it pretty clear from the outset that he’s not going to be as villainous as those (design-wise, really just the one) from The Jungle Book and Robin Hood.
For every innovation, something else scans as lazy: The movie subverts cartoon stereotypes about snakes, but indulges Disney’s long-standing stereotypes about cats. (This isn’t a spoiler; a lynx family shows obvious hostility up front.) The mystery hits a smidge closer to the Chinatown-for-kids territory of Who Framed Roger Rabbit and Rango this time around, without ever touching the cleverness of either (despite a couple of hilarious left-field movie references). And focusing on Nick and Judy’s partnership makes sequel sense, but is framed by a rerun of Judy’s insecurities over proving herself as an unlikely bunny cop.
And in spite of those insecurities and touching on anti-reptile prejudice, Zootopia 2 backs off its evocations of contemporary racial tensions, one of the most provocative things about the previous film. Instead, it delivers a more Disney-tested story of a buried-history injustice uncovered by the heroes. (It’s already vaguely similar to Frozen II before it heavily involves Zootopia’s section of frozen tundra.) Plot and emotional beats are repeated and underlined incessantly, a very Netflix-era development.
Still: You can see why a weird but proud end credit bills this as a film by “everyone” at Disney Animation. Unlike Moana 2 (which was evidently reworked from a TV series) or Frozen II (which came out a little underbaked, like they had to make do with an ending that hadn’t been cracked yet), Zootopia 2 feels like it came out as the filmmakers intended, even if they set their own expectations at medium instead of high.
It’s enough to live up to its similarly uneven but inspired predecessor. The inevitable teases for a third movie elicit more of a “fair enough” than a groan. Not least because maybe next time, the fox and the bunny will… well, let’s not get our hopes up. But consider that Mulder’s first name was Fox.
