Zootopia 2

I generally try not to make a practice of seeing the sequel to a movie I haven't seen, but I made an exception this weekend because I genuinely needed to go to the movies and I couldn't think of any other movie playing within an hour's driving radius of home that I wanted to see. For context, this beat out Marty Supreme, Anaconda, Avatar: Fire and Ash, The Housemaid, David (which I'd already seen) and the runner-up (by an inch), Song Sung Blue. The Spongebob movie had been playing last week and I refrained from seeing it as well. I feel bad about my reluctance to see Z2 now. I actually had a pretty good time. There's a lot more to this animated movie about a city of more-or-less anthropomorphic animals than you would expect, including jokes (and dramatic beats) that parents and film buffs in general will enjoy. Like Auntie Trunchbull's chocolates, it's too good for children. And though I wouldn't know, I heard from a dad who was seated in the row behind me with his wife and kids that this movie is actually better than the original.

The cast is a blast. And it goes on and on. Headlining it as a rabbit-fox pair of buddy cops, Judy Hopps and Nick Wilde, are Ginnifer Goodwin (previously Snow White on TV's Once Upon a Time) and Jason Bateman (Michael Bluth on Arrested Development). Joining them are recent Oscar winner Ke Huy Quan (The Goonies, Everything Everywhere All At Once) as Gary De'Snake, Andy Samberg (Hotel Transylvania, Brooklyn Nine-Nine) as Pawbert, the misfit runt of a powerful family of lynxes, David Straithairn (Delores Claiborne, Good Night and Good Luck) as Pawbert's villainous dad, Macaulay Culkin and his partner Brenda Song as a couple of Pawbert's lynx siblings, Shakira as a pop-singer gazelle, Idris Elba as a Cape buffalo police chief, Michelle Gomez (Missy on Doctor Who) as a razorback cop, an outrageous Patrick Warburton (The Tick, The Emperor's New Groove) as Zootopia's horsey mayor, Danny Trejo (Machete) as a reptile, Bonnie Hunt (Return to Me, Jumanji) as Judy's rabbit mum, June Squib (Nebraska) as her grandma, Wilmer Valderrama (NCIS, That 70s Show) as a zebra cop, Jean Reno (Leon: The Professional) as a pair of goat cops, Alan Tudyk (Firefly, Resident Alien) in multiple roles, John Leguizamo as an anteater, Maurice LaMarche (voice of The Brain, the lab rat that kept trying to take over the world) as a shrew mobster ironically known as Mr. Big, Josh Dallas (Prince Charming on Once Upon a Time) as a pig, Tommy Chong as a yak, TV chef Nick DiGiovanni as an iguana barback, Tig Notaro (Star Trek: Discovery) as a grizzly bear, Ed Sheeran as a sheep who (funnily enough) is seen getting sheered at a barbershop, Michael J. Fox as (duh) a fox, Josh Gad (Olaf in Frozen) as a mole, Mario Lopez (Saved by the Bell) as a wolf, Robert Irwin (the late Steve Irwin's son) as a koala, Jenny Slate (SNL, Bob's Burgers) as a villainous sheep from the previous installment, Mark Smith (Rhino on Gladiators) as (like, duh) a rhino, archival recordings of the late Tiny Lister (president of Earth in The Fifth Element) as a fox who goes undercover as a baby bunny, Dwayne Johnson as a dik-dik (snort) whose only audible line to my recollection is a brief scream when he gets blasted out of a tuba (don't ask), and among several animation studio honchos making cameos, Disney CEO Bob Iger as a tiger weatherman. Whew!

So, it's a movie with a lot of speaking characters in it. Obviously, being open to diversity is a not very subtle theme. The hero bunny and fox have to overcome differences of personality and culture to work together and solve a case involving a forbidden reptile in the all-mammal city, who seems to be trying to steal a precious artifact of one of the city's founding lynxes. But there's more to the maguffin than meets the eye. I mean that literally. And the outcome is two rookie cops having to go on the run, framed for crimes they didn't commit, trying to get to the bottom of things and clear their own names while being chased by other cops as well as fiendish bad guys. There are perilous pursuits and escapes, a potentially deadly betrayal, lots of close calls and some therapeutic work on the central relationship, which a well-timed movment of levity just barely saves from being too on-the-nose. There are film buff Easter eggs, satirical gags (nothing is spared) and downright breathtaking scenery, art, animation and animated-character acting. It has a good story, good dialogue, good voice acting, the whole works. I fully endorse this movie.

And now, to the Three Scenes That Made It For Me: (1) Danger, division and structural collapse in a crumbling, mountaintop chateau. Or whatever that was. (2) Judy and Nick are warned not to refuse an offer of food when they visit the reptiles' speakeasy ... and are immediately put to the test with a bowl of squirming grubs. (3) The climactic crisis in which snake venom and antivenom play key roles. Actually there are so many scenes that I could have put on this list, including everything surrounding the Marsh Market as well as a thrill ride in a sloth's hot rod. Here I am, a well-known (?) hater of sequels, wondering where this franchise will go next.